News

We are honored to feature an exhibition statement written by Ms. Yumiko Nonaka, Senior Curator at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. Please take the time to review the statement.

Oscillating Between the Abstract and the Figurative— On the Paintings of Rikuji Makabe

Yumiko Nonaka
Senior Curator
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

When I saw Rikuji Makabe’s paintings for the first time, they seemed elusive, and it was difficult to grasp what perspective they were depicted from. They left a flat impression due to the lack of depth, and though depicting nature, they appeared to be highly abstract. There was no conventional sense of pictorial depth; rather, the compositions resembled collages of motifs and color fields, such as wallpaper or decorative patterns. I remember feeling uncertain, wondering what was being painted. Of course, I should mention upfront that this initial, somewhat negative impression was later overturned by seeing his subsequent activities, the new works which he released in this exhibition, and conversations together.
Born in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Makabe worked in the Kanto region for several years after graduating from an art university in Tokyo, but following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, he returned to his hometown of Kanazawa. During his student years, he studied Abstract Expressionism and sought a new kind of abstract painting. It now makes sense why I sensed a trace of abstraction in his work at first glance. His awareness and pursuit of abstraction remain deeply rooted in his practice to this day. “I want to paint abstract paintings with nature as their background,” said Makabe[1]. Between abstraction and figuration, Makabe continues to wrestle and search for a way to push his painting to the next stage.
To begin with, Makabe’s progression from abstraction to figuration itself is fascinating. While working on an abstract painting, he happened to glance at the unfinished canvas and thought it resembled a pine forest, so he completed the work under the title Pine Forest (Shōrin). From that moment on, abstraction began to appear more figuratively to him, leading him to paint trees as his main motif. There is a very similar episode of Wassily Kandinsky, who is said to be the founder of abstract painting. Seeing one of his own paintings turned upside down in his studio, Kandinsky could not recognize what it depicted, yet found it compelling, and from that moment, he began to engage with abstract art. Makabe moved from abstraction to figuration while Kandinsky from figuration to abstraction. There is a constant oscillation between the two. This dynamic consciousness—crossing between abstraction and figuration—is what I believe generates Makabe’s present painterly style, though I shall consider this further after examining the works in detail.
One of the sources of Makabe’s elusive paintings is its hybrid nature of his method, genres, and cultures. Although he paints trees, his works are not conventional landscape paintings; elements of nihonga (Japanese-style painting) can also be discerned in the composition. Some take on the format of hanging scrolls, while others feature colorful hues, or bold repetition or crop of motifs, reminiscent of pop art elements or even patterns seen on wallpaper and tableware. This style, encompassing such diverse elements, stems from Makabe’s deep conviction as a painter.
Returning to his hometown after the earthquake in Tōhoku, Makabe found himself confronting his hometown, Kanazawa, that had shaped him. He began to seek paintings that could only be created by an artist living and working within Kanazawa’s distinctive history, culture, climate, and natural environment. Moreover, for Makabe, who had grown up intimately familiar with the mountains and rivers close to him since childhood, painting trees and nature must have been instinctive to him. He never paints from direct observation, nor makes preparatory sketches; rather, he paints the “nature” stored within his own memory and sensation. The climate of the land within him cultivated his lived experiences. Multiple times, seasons, and places were overlayed within a single canvas. Viewing Makabe’s work in this way reveals that all elements are essential.
For example, as a painter from Ishikawa, Hasegawa Tōhaku was a familiar presence for Makabe, almost akin to nature itself. The world of Tōhaku’s Pine Trees screens (Shōrin-zu Byōbu) has undoubtedly influenced Makabe’s pictorial sensibility. Furthermore, Makabe’s paintings are founded upon the rhythms of nature and organic forms found in Japanese art. He is, of course, not a nihonga (Japanese-style) painter, but before being a painter, he is Japanese. Acknowledging the influence not only by Tōhaku but also by other Japanese painters such as Tawaraya Sōtatsu, Ogata Kōrin, and Murakami Kagaku, Makabe’s use of gold and silver leaf, as well as his depiction of trees, draws upon these predecessors’ traditions, yet have been sublimated into his own unique expression.
On the other hand, what about the colors? Where do these colors – with such high brightness and saturation, and rich variation – come from? With these questions at hand, Makabe is acutely aware of the influence of Kutani ware. When we think of Japanese colors or colors of nature, we often imagine muted or subdued tones. However, Kanazawa, Makabe’s birthplace and the home of Kutani ware, and also a center for gold leaf production, is a cultural sphere that has long embraced brilliant and vibrant color in everyday life. Makabe himself also analyzes that has unconsciously permeated his own art making. Furthermore, for Makabe who is in touch with nature so intimately, it is nature itself that possesses diverse colors—far more colorful and vivid than people tend to assume. In the Hokuriku region, the climate is often overcast and humid, hense the faint light and the atmospheric, ethereal quality unique to moist lands are particularly distinctive. This is why Tōhaku devoted himself to capturing the fleeting rays of light filtering through bamboo groves and the expression of damp air. Makabe, too, after studying this same northern light and atmosphere and chiaroscuro of the Hokuriku region, brought the most realistic colors of nature as he truly perceives to the canvas.
The red and orange colors of a sunset, the deep blue of dawn, the sparkling greens and yellows seen on plants after rain, the blue and violet light mingled in the winter snow. When immersed in nature, one witnesses a variety of colors depending on the weather. To evoke these subtle shifts of light and color, Makabe not only uses paint but also incorporates acrylic panels, bringing his works closer to the sensation from his real experience. Nature is a treasure house of infinite colors. “Nature is much flashier than people think.” Saying this, Makabe, who knew nature inside out, boldly chose vivid colors.
Moreover, the gold and silver leaf which Makabe uses evoke not mere decoration, but the fleeting glimmers of sunlight that pierce through cloudy skies, rain, or snow in the Hokuriku region, along with the sensation of the humid air. Similarly, the vertical bands of color and the colorful acrylic strips that uniquely appear in Makabe’s works seem to register shifting atmospheric changes, contrasts, and play of light. It could also evoke the depictions of mist and clouds used in ukiyo-e prints and folding screen paintings, suggesting transitions of scene, time, or spatial depth. In Japanese art, these techniques were used to capture various events unfolding within the passage of time – such as changing scenes, indicating the passage of time, or expressing spatial depth – within a single painting. Makabe’s striped color fields can also be read as inscriptions of temporal and spatial change. Contrasts of light and shadow, brightness and darkness, movement and stillness are expressed through foil, richly colored stripes, and color fields.
It is also worth mentioning the influence from Islamic culture. During his travels in Istanbul, Makabe was deeply impressed by the restoration of old tile murals in an ancient mosque. He was fascinated by how damaged tiles were repaired using fragments, almost like kintsugi, from completely different eras – mismatched pieces that nonetheless created an interesting sense of temporal and spatial dissonance. Moreover, the ornamental nature and continuity of Islamic art have also influenced Makabe’s paintings. The decorative quality of Islamic art, developed within a culture that forbids idolatry, is in a sense, highly compatible with Makabe’s research into abstract painting. Makabe’s style of repeatedly depicting woods, or his method of assembling paintings on wooden panels into a single work are seen in this Islamic art technique, revealing a profound influence from the artistic method of Islamic art, form large-scale images through the accumulation of small mosaics and tiles.
As mentioned earlier, it has been nearly twenty years since Makabe transformed his style from abstract expression to figurative expression, grounded in diverse cultures, contexts, and environments. What has he been painting these past twenty years? What does abstraction or figuration truly mean to Makabe? Or rather, is the classification of abstract and figurative truly necessary? After all, as Makabe mentioned, “I want to paint abstract paintings with nature as their background.”
The practice of Nicolas de Staël, who left a brilliant mark on postwar French painting history, serves as a reference point for Makabe’s work. De Staël, a painter who oscillated between abstraction and figuration, was keenly aware of their distinction, yet grounded his art in their tension and interplay, rather than treating them as opposites. Positioned between abstraction and figuration, he contemplated their boundary, considering the relationship between the real world and the reality of the painting itself as follows.
“A painting must not be merely a wall upon a wall. A painting must depict something within space. (…) I do not oppose abstract painting to figurative painting. A single painting can be both abstract and figurative at the same time. Abstract in the sense of a wall, and figurative in the sense of representing space.”[2]
Though De Staël’s paintings are abstract in their reduction of reality into color and form, they remain figurative without concealing their connection to real-world imagery and in their pursuit of the painting’s own space and materiality.[3] In addition, De Staël needed to be “both abstract and figurative” in order to depict not only what was visible, but also the invisible behind it—climate, time, and emotion. Toshio Yamanashi observed De Staël’s vivid landscapes, “Captivated by the vast expanse of the sky, and in the act of the painter transcribing that emotion, the distinction between abstraction and figuration dissolves; figuration naturally approaches abstraction.”
Makabe attempted a shift from abstraction to figuration, but he did not convert to a figurative painter. Like De Staël, Makabe’s paintings remain “both abstract and figurative.” Although Makabe’s carefully painted trees are figurative only in their motifs, they are not depictions of actual objects, but rather sensations which he draws from mountains and forests inherent within himself. His vivid color fields are abstract, yet figurative in their representation of real light and atmosphere. Even his vertical color fields and acrylic panels are abstract, yet concrete in their representation of phenomena such as real contrasts, rhythms, and the passage of time. Moreover, Makabe’s paintings contain numerous elements: from the influence of Japanese art and Hokuriku’s climate to Islamic culture. These are undeniable realities that the painter Makabe Rikuji has lived and absorbed. To sublimate these influences into his own expression without ignoring them, while consciously embracing both abstraction and figuration, he now seems to be defining the very place of his own painting right now. That is the world only Makabe can depict, and the paintings which only he can create.

^[1] Interview by the author (September 8, 2025).

^[2] Exhibition Catalogue: “Nicolas de Staël,” Tobu Museum of Art, et al., 1993, p. 80 (quoted from “Témoignages pour l’art abstrait,” J. Alvard, R. van Gindertaël, Édition Art d’aujourd’hui, Paris, 1952).

^[3] Toshio Yamanashi, A Study on Landscape Painting: Communication and Transgression with the World, Part III – The Independence of Landscape Painting and the Transformation of the World, Brücke, 2016, pp. 607–608.