Risa Murakami

Artist Statement

Nihon Bijutsuin INYU

Risa Murakami is a Japanese artist whose practice is grounded in the traditional techniques and materials of Nihonga while articulating a subtle dialogue between the self and nature.

Her formative experiences with both natural and urban environments inform her enduring motif of the water surface, which functions as a mirror that reflects not only the external world but the inner life of the viewer.

Through this symbolic imagery, her work evokes cycles of life, the passage of time, and contemplative stillness.

Murakami has exhibited her work in galleries and exhibitions domestically and internationally, contributing to the evolution of Nihonga in a contemporary context and expanding her presence on the global art stage.

Representative Work: Pure Mind, Eternal, Grace

Risa Murakami is an artist who works with traditional materials and techniques of nihonga (Japanese style painting), reinterpreting them through a contemporary sensibility to depict the quiet, invisible dialogue that flows between nature and humanity.

At the core of her practice lies a deeply physical awareness of being “alive as part of nature.”

Having grown up closely connected to the natural world and later experiencing life in urban environments, her encounters with nature upon returning to it became increasingly vivid and profound.

These experiences ultimately crystallized into her consistent and central motif: the surface of water.

The water’s surface simultaneously reflects the external landscape and functions as a mirror for the viewer’s inner world.

The autumn leaves and shimmering light depicted upon it evoke cycles of life, disappearance and regeneration, and the passage of time.

Through these works, viewers are invited to reposition themselves within the greater rhythms of nature.

Using traditional nihonga materials such as hemp paper, mineral pigments, and gold leaf, Murakami layers her work with original textures and fluid techniques to visualize emotional strata that exist prior to language.

Rather than asserting a strong statement, her paintings operate through quiet resonance, gently engaging the viewer’s interior sensibilities.

While firmly grounded in the tradition of Japanese painting, Murakami’s work does not remain bound by nostalgia.

Instead, it opens toward universally shareable sensations of “tranquility” and “peace” within an international context.

It is in this openness that the contemporary significance of her practice resides.

From ancient times, Japanese thought has regarded all phenomena as imbued with spirit, fostering a worldview in which human life unfolds in close coexistence with nature.

Japan still retains landscapes that remain largely untouched.

Encounters with such environments heighten an awareness of existence as something sustained by natural forces rather than possessed by the self.

The colors, forms, and atmospheric conditions generated by nature are not merely visual phenomena, but sensorial experiences that invite stillness, attentiveness, and a dissolution of boundaries between the observer and the observed.

Within this context, the surface of water emerges as a central motif.

Continuously transformed by season, weather, and time, it functions as both a reflective plane and a liminal threshold—simultaneously mirroring external landscapes and internal states.

Water becomes a site where perception, memory, and temporality quietly converge.

The drifting autumn leaves depicted upon the water’s surface evoke cycles of emergence and return.

As they sink, decompose, and eventually give rise to new life, they articulate a vision of time not as linear progression, but as accumulation and renewal.

In contemplating these processes, the works gesture toward the vast temporal scale through which the Earth has sustained life, eliciting a sense of awe toward forces that exceed human measure.

Through subtle materiality and restrained expression, the works do not assert meaning but invite resonance.

They offer a space in which viewers may momentarily recalibrate their relationship to nature—experiencing tranquility, reflection, and an awareness of coexistence as a lived necessity rather than an abstract ideal.

Risa Murakami
1997
  • The 52nd Spring Exhibition of the Japan Art Institute INTEN
2012
  • The 67th Spring Exhibition of the Japan Art Institute INTEN
  • The 97th Exhibition of the Japan Art Institute INTEN
  • The 30th Ueno Royal Museum Grand Prize Exhibition
2017
  • February 20th–25th “Risa Murakami Japanese-style Painting Exhibition” at Gallery of Hikari Ginza
2020
  • May 18th–23rd “Risa Murakami Japanese-style Painting Exhibition” at Gallery of Hikari Ginza
  • October 23rd–November 3rd Collaboration Exhibition TORY BURCH × RISA MURAKAMI at Ginza
2021
  • Collaboration Exhibition Tokyo American Club × RISA MURAKAMI
  • Collaboration Exhibition AREA Tokyo × RISA MURAKAMI
2022
  • Collaboration Exhibition THE RITZ-CARLTON Tokyo × RISA MURAKAMI
2023
  • Risa Murakami Japanese-style Painting Exhibition at Carrousel de Louvre in Paris
  • Risa Murakami Japanese-style Painting Exhibition at IMPERIAL HOTEL Tower Tokyo