Sumi ink on Belgium linen
7H x 11W x 2D ft (each) (3 panels)

Left Panel

Center Panel

Right Panel

Mulberry paper and blue Sumi ink
56H x 60W in

Makoto Fujimura paints at least twenty different images before deeming one worthy to send over to Tokyo for a custom mounting with artisanal handmade wild silk. In the Silence-Horizon scrolls, hundred-year-old Sumi inks bleed into mulberry paper, echoing the spectrographic soundwave patterns that Fujimura’s father, Osamu Fujimura, used for his research as a pioneer scientist at Bell Labs and at Ohio State University. Silence is full of meaning in human speech, and these scrolls are meditations into the prosaic power of silence.

The museum-quality silk is especially tensile and can last for up to hundreds of years as it is harvested from silkworms raised on a special diet from birth. As an additional measure of quality and care, the color pigments used to hand-dye the silk are also organic and natural as well. The mounter, Kishida san, normally only does business with internationally esteemed museums including the Freer in Boston and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. However, he makes an exception to mount for Fujimura due to his admiration and respect for Fujimura as a Master of Nihonga, as well as for Fujimura’s kind and humble character.

While the scrolls may initially look simple and less complex than other comparable nihonga paintings, they are actually just as labor and material intensive, if not even more so than others. The mounting itself is a work of highly skilled workmanship that is becoming rarer and rarer over the years as artisans of the craft continue to pass, and few young artists continue to enter the trade. Only three of these scrolls exist in the world, with one being owned by Martin Scorsese, and the other two being exhibited at Waterfall Mansion and Gallery.

Mulberry Paper and Sumi Ink
56H x 60W in

Makoto Fujimura paints at least twenty different images before deeming one worthy to send over to Tokyo for a custom mounting with artisanal handmade wild silk. In the Silence-Horizon scrolls, hundred-year-old Sumi inks bleed into mulberry paper, echoing the spectrographic soundwave patterns that Fujimura’s father, Osamu Fujimura, used for his research as a pioneer scientist at Bell Labs and at Ohio State University. Silence is full of meaning in human speech, and these scrolls are meditations into the prosaic power of silence.

The museum-quality silk is especially tensile and can last for up to hundreds of years as it is harvested from silkworms raised on a special diet from birth. As an additional measure of quality and care, the color pigments used to hand-dye the silk are also organic and natural as well. The mounter, Kishida san, normally only does business with internationally esteemed museums including the Freer in Boston and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. However, he makes an exception to mount for Fujimura due to his admiration and respect for Fujimura as a Master of Nihonga, as well as for Fujimura’s kind and humble character.

While the scrolls may initially look simple and less complex than other comparable nihonga paintings, they are actually just as labor and material intensive, if not even more so than others. The mounting itself is a work of highly skilled workmanship that is becoming rarer and rarer over the years as artisans of the craft continue to pass, and few young artists continue to enter the trade. Only three of these scrolls exist in the world, with one being owned by Martin Scorsese, and the other two being exhibited at Waterfall Mansion and Gallery.