Makoto Fujimura

Fujimura was born in Boston, Massachusetts.[2] Both of his parents were of Japanese descent and after Fujimura was born, they returned to Japan, where Fujimura spent most of his childhood. When he was 13 years old, his family came back to the United States.[3]

Fujimura graduated cum laude from Bucknell University in 1983 with a double major in animal behavior and art and a minor in creative writing.[4] Fujimura went on to study traditional Japanese painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts under a Nihonga Master Kazuho Hieda. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1989. He was invited back to the Tokyo University of the Arts to continue his education in a lineage doctoral-level program in Nihonga, an ancient Japanese painting style, under a Nihonga Master Matazo Kayama. He was the first non-Japanese citizen to be accepted in the Japanese painting doctorate program, which dates back to the 15th century.[2]

Fujimura's works has been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world, including the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, Israel, the U.K., China, Hong Kong. In 1992, at the age of 32, Fujimura became the youngest artist ever to have a piece acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.[2]

His work includes "Ki-seki", "Water Flames", "Walking on Water", "Silence", "Columbines", "Golden Sea", "Four Holy Gospels", "Rhapsody", and "Sea Beyond", a collection of paintings using pulverized precious minerals, including gold, platinum, silver, azurite, malachite and cinnabar.

He has collaborated with Susie Ibarra on multiple occasions, and his live painting in 2009 was recorded by Plywood Pictures in "Live in New York: Susie Ibarra + Makoto Fujimura" and his live painting in 2021 was documented by Windrider Productions.

In November 2009, Fujimura's works were coupled with works of Georges Rouault at Dillon Gallery. Fujimura created several new works in homage to the 20th-century master. His "Twin Rivers of Tamagawa" (Collection of Tokyo University of Art Museum) was included in the Panasonic Museum exhibit "Rouault and Japan" in 2020.[5]

In 2023, Fujimura's exhibition, "A Gaze Traverses Time and Space: Dialogue between Makoto Fujimura and Chinese Ancient Porcelain," at C3M Museum on the Bund in Shanghai, China, featured 17 paintings by Fujimura and 13 pieces of Chinese imperial porcelain.[6]

In October 2023, Fujimura opened an exhibit of his paintings titled "My Bright Abyss: Paintings and Prints" at the Bradford Gallery at St. George's Episcopal Church in Nashville, TN in partnership with Covenant Presbyterian Church (Nashville) and Liturgy Collective.[7][8]

In 2011, Fujimura founded the Fujimura Institute in honor of his father Osamu Fujimura,[9] a renowned scientist. As the first project, the Fujimura Institute launched the Qu4rtets, a collaboration between Fujimura, painter Bruce Herman, Duke theologian/pianist Jeremy Begbie, and Yale composer Christopher Theofanidis, based on T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. The exhibition travelled to Baylor University, Duke University, and Yale University, Hong Kong University, Cambridge University, Gordon College, Roanoke College and other institutions around the globe. The Qu4rtets became the first contemporary art exhibited at the historic King's Chapel in Cambridge, UK, for the Easter of 2015, and was exhibited in Hiroshima for the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings in November 2015.

He is represented in Asia by Artrue International. His works are in permanent collection at the National Modern Museum of Art in Tokyo, Yokohama Museum of Art, Tokyo University of the Arts Museum, the Saint Louis Museum, the Cincinnati Museum, and the CNN building in Hong Kong, and other museums globally. Tikotin Museum in Israel hosted a solo exhibit in 2018 curated by James Elaine.

Crossway Publishing commissioned Fujimura in 2009 for The Four Holy Gospels project to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the publishing of the King James Bible. It was the first time that a single artist has been commissioned to illuminate the four Gospels in nearly five hundred years. The Four Holy Gospels consist of five major frontispieces, 89 chapter heading letters and over 140 pages of hand illumined pages, all done in traditional Nihonga. The Gospels were on exhibition at the Museum of Biblical Art in Manhattan, and were on display in Takashimaya, Nihonbashi, Tokyo in 2011. The Four Holy Gospels original art were exhibited in "Four Holy Gospels Chapel" at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. in 2018.[10]

Fujimura is also an author of several books including Art+Faith: A Theology of Making (Yale U. Press, 2021),[11] Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art and Culture (NavPress, 2009),[12] and Culture Care (IVPress, 2020).[13] In 2016, Fujimura released Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering (IVPress),[14] an autobiographical journey into Shūsaku Endō's Silence.

Fujimura was featured in PBS's American Masters series "Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous" (2019) as the only living artist commenting on Rothko's paintings.[15] In 2023, upon request by Christopher Rothko, Fujimura wrote the Afterword for republication of The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art (Yale U. Press, 2023), a collection of writings by Mark Rothko.[16]

• Art+Faith: A Theology of Making (Yale University Press, 2021) (foreword by N. T. Wright)
• Silence and Beauty (IVPress, 2016, Sho-Bunsha in Japan, 2017) - Aldersgate Award Winner.
• Culture Care (Fujimura Institute, 2014, republished by IVPress, 2017)
• "The Aroma of the New" (Books & Culture, 2011)
• "Fallen Towers and the Art of Tea" (2009)
• Refractions: A Journey of Art, Faith and Culture (NavPress, 2009)
• "Withoutside: Transgressing in Love", Image Journal, "Twentieth Anniversary Issue: Fully Human," Number 60 (2008)
• "A Letter to a Young Artist", Scribbling in the Sand, Michael Card, InterVarsity Press (2002)
• "Fallen Towers and the Art of Tea", Image Journal, Number 32 (2001)
• "An Exception to Gravity – On Life and Art of Jackson Pollock", Regeneration Quarterly, Volume 7, Number 3 (2001)
• "River Grace", Image Journal, Number 22 (1999)
• "That Final Dance", It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God, edited by Ned Bustard, Square Halo Press (2000)

Fujimura served as a special advisor to the major motion picture by Martin Scorsese based on Shusaku Endō's Silence.

In 2010 Fujimura made his on-screen debut with commentary in the award-winning documentary, The Human Experience. His mid-career retrospective catalogue Golden Sea (Dillon Gallery Press) was released in 2013 with essays by Daniel Siedell, Roberta Ahmanson, Nicolas Wolterstorff, and others. Golden Sea includes a full documentary of the same title by Plywood Pictures.

In 2017, Fujimura served as an executive producer of a short film Abstraction: Dianne Collard Story,[17] a finalist at the Heartland Film Festival. With his wife Haejin Shim Fujimura, the Fujimuras are the executive producers of films "New Creation" (Windrider Productions) and "Slum Pastor" (Windrider Productions) which depict the work of Embers International and its Cultural Center for generational freedom.

In 1991, Fujimura founded IAMCultureCare, formerly known as the International Arts Movement.[18] He has co-hosted several major conferences for the International Arts Movement, including Culture Care Summit (February 8–12, 2017, at Fuller Theological Seminary).

He has lectured at the U.K. Parliament, Stockholm School of Economics, The Aspen Institute, Hong Kong University, Bucknell University, Cairn University, Gordon College, Grove City College, The King's College, Princeton University, Yale University, and has been a keynote speaker in various arts, academic and business conferences.

From September 2015 to January 2020, Fujimura was the Vision Director of the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary.[19]