⑤Artist Profiles NAKATA Mayu

Nakata Mayu encountered the lacquer art of Kagawa at age 29 and made her way toward becoming an artist. Her works feature vivid colors and unconstrained shapes, and her patterns, created by multiple layers of colored lacquer, show different expressions depending on viewing angles. The traditional technique used in her vividly impressive works is called kimma, in which lacquer surfaces are carved with a blade, filled with colored lacquer, and then polished. Nakata expresses visions that cannot be captured at a glance. In the process of “drawing (= carving, color-filling),” the artist conceals scenery in multiple layers of colored lacquer, and in the process of “drawing and polishing,” she expresses herself by tracing the changes in her feelings as if in dialogue with herself. The artist says that the abstraction of the landscape is not intended to enable the viewer to relive experiences, but rather to help her recall her inner landscape.
Kimma is a technique that cannot produce the same colors or patterns twice, a characteristic that is not uniform, and her works embrace the transformations of time, self, and others. We are drawn in not only by the fusion of values of materials, techniques, and the self, but also by the inclusive nature of her works.