AKIKO NAKAYAMA

Visual artist Akiko Nakayama creates installations, live performance and photographic works dealing with energy cycles, movement and colours. Employing a wide range of techniques, her unique approach to live painting results in melting landscapes, kaleidoscopic patterns and surreal and saturated vistas. Working in collaboration with some of Japan’s most distinctive improvising artists, including Keiji Haino, Akira Sakata and Hiromichi Sakamoto, she pursues what she titles ‘alive painting’, in which she aims to find the “existence of life” in the act of creating out of nothingness.

Artist Statement:

I am a painter.

I would like to paint living things and convey energy metamorphosis.

But, why is a painting dry? Why isn’t a painting alive?

For me, it felt like all my past paintings were dead. 

So, I was inspired to start “Alive Painting” my current work. Combining the energy of movement and the vibrant of colours, I bring pictures to life.

I depict the resonance between shapes and textures by using different types of liquids, each with a unique characteristic.

How the materials interact with each other is influenced by external factors, such as wind, sound, humidity, gravity, time…etc.

In recent years, I have performed solo live acts using a colour-organ system called “Fluid2wave”.

This system uses soundtracks and sound effects to accompany the digital projection of the live colour painting.

My work of art is an abstract metaphor of various aspects of nature through the use of colours and fluidity, and attempts to celebrate the moments of beauty amidst the ephemerality of life.

Life has different wavelengths. So, I create works of art with various materials and forms of media to capture each passing moment.

I’m interested in the beauty of the boundary between 2 colours. To me, the meeting of 2 colours represents the dance of Yin and Yang.