Makoto Fujimura is a New York artist, the founder of International Arts Movement (IAM), and a member of the board of the National Council on the Arts. Nominated by President Bush, he is currently serving his six year term. Makoto Fujimura is a painter whose work explores a combination of contemporary American abstract expressionism and traditional Japanese art of Nihonga. Born in Boston and educated both in the United States and Japan, Fujimura creates semi-abstract paintings and installations bridging medieval methods and aesthetics with contemporary expression.
His work is included in the collections of the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, and the Time Warner/AOL/CNN building in Hong Kong. Mr. Fujimura graduated from Bucknell University and received an M.F.A. and a doctorate degree from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Noted artist and critic Robert Kushner has written, "The idea of forging a new kind of art, about hope, healing, redemption, refuge, while maintaining visual sophistication and intellectual integrity is a growing movement, one which finds Fujimura's work at the vanguard."
