Through June 1, Makoto Fujimura’s ‘Transfiguration’ triptych ink paintings are on display at The Arts Lounge inside the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
4 min. read
In addition to being a featured artist in The Arts Lounge, contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura is an Equity in Action Visiting Scholar in Penn’s Office of Social Equity & Community.
When contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura created the unusually large “Transfiguration” triptych in 2017, inside his unusually spacious Pasadena studio, the intent was clear: Inspired by trips to biblical landscapes between 2016 and 2019, he says he felt an experience so larger-than-life warranted an abnormally sized triptych.
For years, though, this particular triptych—one of five—sat in storage. Most gallery spaces are not large enough to accommodate the size of the paintings. So, when the opportunity came to display them at The Arts Lounge inside the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts’ lobby, with its high ceilings and immense brutalist brick wall, it felt like a rare opportunity for the triptych to resurface as the altarpiece-like experience it was designed to channel.
“It’s almost like it’s made for it,” says Fujimura, sitting in front of the trio of ink paintings, with its middle piece intentionally raised to recall European triptychs, which themselves recall historical altarpieces.
“Transfiguration” is a series of three Sumi ink paintings painted through layered brushwork on Belgian linen. They were inspired by 16th-century Japanese artist Tohaku Hasegawa’s Shōrin-zu byōbu multi-panel painting of pine trees shrouded in mist, but ultimately came to life through an intensely slow, meditative process Fujimura embarked upon creating ink by rubbing a pine-soot-compressed block against stone, transforming it into ink through the addition of water. What is today suspended on the wall of The Arts Lounge is a result of this long and deeply personal process.
“I had to commit to it, and decided ‘Well, I’m going to do this as a meditation, slowing down and forcing myself to slow down every morning,’ and that was very healing for me because I was going through things at the time and would end up losing both my parents in the span of two years,” Fujimura says. “It was a time of meditation, of reflection, of slowing down.”
Eight years since he made the paintings, he says, the pieces are closer to what he intended thanks to the settling of the brown and blue inks that change over time—especially the brown ink, he notes, which he inherited from a Nihonga master. Nihonga is a traditional Japanese style of painting that typically uses organic pigments in a style inspired by calligraphy techniques. The Nihonga ink, says Fujimura, settles and comes alive. It is “like good wine.”
While the triptych is, of course, open to interpretation, the fullness and peaks of the middle panel might be observed as reflecting the “Mount of Transfiguration” in Christian scripture. It could also be seen as an arc of life. However guests interpret the triptych, he has one word of advice: Give the pieces time.
“I always think it takes at least 10 minutes before you can see my work, because it is oftentimes layered,” Fujimura says. “This one isn’t as layered, but because of the Sumi ink and how that is made, and in fact how I remake or make the ink itself, it’s this time captured in a different way. I call it ‘timefulness’ … It takes time for the mind to settle, because we’re so busy.”
At a reception on April 7, he spoke to Penn community members about art as transfiguration. Fujimura, in addition to being a featured artist in The Arts Lounge, is also an Equity in Action (EAV) Visiting Scholar in the Office of Social Equity & Community (SEC), alongside his wife, lawyer Haejin Fujimura.
Michaelangelo looking at a block of marble, he says, is “literally transfiguring the marble.”
“Art has always been about transfiguration, so it’s not just a religious term but a way that art is made,” he says, recalling his own push and pull of inspiration, and the transformation of that force to the energy he found to create the triptych. “And so, I think part of what I intuited is that this is the source, or the origin, of art.”
“We are thrilled to have the monumental painting ‘Transfiguration’ gracing the lobby,” says John McInerney, executive director of The Sachs Program. “Not only does Mako’s work fit beautifully into the architecture of the Annenberg Center, it is a testament to the impact of an artist working across multiple communities on campus. In addition to his role as an EAV scholar, and his engagement with multiple departments in the School of Arts & Sciences, this installation was the result of a close collaboration between SEC, The Sachs Program, Penn Live Arts and the Arthur Ross Gallery. That is really special.”
“Makoto Fujimura: Transfiguration” is on display in The Arts Lounge inside the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts’ lobby through June 1.
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