Painting Radiance:: Light and Nature in The Art of Daisuke Nakano

Daisuke Nakano creates paintings of light. I think, if heaven exists, it would resemble the landscapes of Nakano’s creation. Following Illuminating All Over the World, a painting that had brought hope last summer, this spring, Nakano added a pair of two-panel screens titled, Blessed with Light. With beautiful wisteria blossoms that seem to flow from the sky, the elegant peacocks, the plants and insects of early summer…each element possesses a vitality that makes them seem alive.

The overpowering composition, the complete lines, the precise details, and the living colors, standing in front of this work, I find my heart stirred by its dazzling beauty, my chest becomes filled with joy, and my body grows warm. It is a feeling akin to being bathed in sunlight. It is the light of compassion, of nature, which is severe yet kind. The clusters of flowers on the wisteria become entangled in the peacock’s feathers as they blow in the wind, their mysterious yet sacred perfume making us forget reality at the moment.

Nakano utilizes traditional materials and techniques of Nihonga-style Japanese painting. He applies paints stroke by stroke, employing an earnest sensibility and tenacious observation, preventing him from producing more than a few words over a year. This is an example of the Nihonga-style painting of the Reiwa period. It throws light on the chaotic world in which we live and represents the highest level of style. We hope you will come and stand in front of Nakano’s paintings and allow yourselves to dream.

Daisuke Nakano is a visionary in contemporary Nihonga painting. He is precise, tenacious, and patient. Producing only a few paintings a year, he spends the time perfecting each line and capturing the light and life of the subject matter. Whether it be deer, galloping towards the sunrise or peacocks perched on branches of full spring bloom, his paintings contain a sense of time standing still. Learning to appreciate traditional Japanese painting methods, he created his own style of painting through filling the entire canvas or screen with ornate detail. He expresses the change in our natural world and bridges the connection between human and nature, light and dark, life and death. To look at Nakano’s painting is to understand that paradox, the existence of life does not mean the absence of death but the beautiful collaboration that is the cycle of life. Daisuke Nakano celebrates life with each brush stroke and with each painting illustrates a collaboration of time, life, light, and nature.   

Nakano’s works can be found in museums and collections around the world; the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields recently acquired “Magnolia 'Luminous Wind,'” and featured this painting in “A Brush with Beauty”, an exhibition highlighting masterpieces in Japanese painting over 700 years. After its initial presentation at Ippodo Gallery New York, Painting Radiance will travel to Portland Japanese Garden for its second iteration in June. We anticipate that Daisuke Nakano’s paintings will bring warmth and light to hearts during this spring season.