Masayoshi Nojo

NOJŌ Masayoshi received his MFA in Japanese Painting from Kyoto University of the Arts in 2015. His practice combines contemporary visual language with Japanese aesthetics, exploring themes of memory and the passage of time.

Drawing inspiration from traditional schools such as Rimpa, which often used metal leaf as a base, NOJŌ transforms silver and aluminum leaf into his primary materials, merging photography, silkscreen, and painting. Through layered applications of foil, he creates pictorial depth and optical effects that shift with light and environment, infusing static images with a sense of temporal movement.

His motifs often come from nameless landscapes—forests, branches, and thickets—that evoke the ambiguity of memory, at once familiar and elusive. Recent solo exhibitions in London, Tokyo, and Taiwan highlight this focus, not on the faithful depiction of scenery, but on flickering, misted visual experiences where memory’s uncertainty and the viewer’s subjectivity become central to the work.