Winter Landscape

Provenance:
Private Collection, Ontario

Literature:
Roald Nasgaard, Abstract Painting in Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2007, page 116
Notes:
Kazuo Nakamura worked in a number of different directions during his career – some of his paintings, like his inner structure, string and block structure works, were completely abstract; others, such as this painting, were based on forms in nature. Winter Landscape is particularly striking, with rows of trees repeating in layered clusters across a hillside. Larger in the foreground, the trees become smaller and densify at the top of the canvas. Winter Landscape grew out of Nakamura’s interest in the precise and scientific laws of nature, from which the artist derived fundamental inspiration.

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Here, Nakamura’s painting of individual trees is not static, but rather shifts in variations of pattern and colour, so the trees seem to vibrate on the white background. Roald Nasgaard wrote, “The execution of such work may at times seem mechanical...but in the process, it reaches transcendently upward, lifting his lifelong artistic project towards new levels of metaphysical wonder.” Nakamura strove for the refinement and purity of expression that only comes from in-depth study of a subject as extensive as landscape. While Nakamura often worked with smaller canvases, this work is a rare large-scale example, arguably painted during a well-known period in the artist’s career.