Silence

The Silence series first came out of Fujimura’s journey to write the Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering book (InterVarsity Press), prior to Martin Scorsese's film, Silence. These works explore the extension of the recent Qu4rtets project, the earlier Junan Passion Panel series, and the installation series The Resurrection (collection of Yokohama Museum of Art). Waterfall Mansion Gallery in New York City has featured two exhibits Silence and Beauty (2016) and Silence - Homage (2017, May through July)

In writing about Shusaku Endo's post-war masterpiece Silence, he has begun to connect the aesthetics of 17th century Japan to the ensuing 250 years of trauma and persecution of Christians in Japan. Silence series explores the hidden dimensions of beauty, a beauty born of sacrifice and trauma. These series of works also honor his father's legacy in the study of speech and hearing sciences. According to Fujimura, depicting silence is to depict what we "hear" through silence, and also to visually capture the "soundwaves" of silence. Many of the works in this series are pronounced in their refractive surfaces, and they are nearly impossible to photograph, so what is listed here is limited to the images that can be translated to digital media.

Silence - Kairos, 2015

Mineral Pigments and Gold on Canvas
82H x 137W in

Silence - Kairos was done in tandem with Silence - Aroma painting (Taipei Private Collection, featured in Art in America coverage of Silence movie by Martin Scorsese) of the unique gold and azurite pouring technique Fujimura developed. The silver patterns come from the mixture of space-age gesso and 17th-century Japanese minerals.

Silence - Water Flames, 2015

Mineral pigments and gold on Kumohada
72H x 48W in

Silence - Water Flames takes cues from my Water Flames series based on Dante and Water Flames - Mark in the Four Holy Gospels Frontispieces, and adopts it to the Silence motif. Over 60 layers of special Japanese vermillion are used. This vermillion originally belonged to Seison Maeda, a Nihonga master, and later inherited by Hiroshi Senju. Hiroshi, upon moving his studio - which he shared with Makoto Fujimura in TriBeCa for a decade - out of the city, gifted Fuimura with a box of this special vermillion.