Nobuko Saji: Revealing nature’s simplicity and complexity

For Nobuko Saji, making art is a meditative experience. In her painting, she connects with the spirit of the physical world. “I harvest my creative power from nature,” she says, and in her hands nature’s rhythms and motifs are transformed into strong yet subtle graphic patterns. 

The circle, in particular, is dominant in her work. She notes that the circle’s power is central to Japanese art and Zen spirit, representing the principles of minimalism and an underlying sense of simplicity. Those qualities are reflected in her images, in which even the slightest shifts in color, form and texture can reveal a variety of meanings.While simplicity is at the heart of Saji’s style, her methods of realizing that simplicity are varied and many. In her mixed media paintings, materials such as plaster, gels, acrylics and oil paint are combined. Such a mix of mediums and textures results in works with a vital and complex physical presence. By combining physicality with the sense of the spiritual, the artist presents us with a distinctive body of work. Born in Japan, Saji lives and works in the United States.