Friends of Geneva gathered November 28, 2007, at the Orlando Museum of Art for a Great Conversation with Friends of Geneva featuring world-renowned abstract artist Mako Fujimura.

Makoto Fujimura was educated bi-culturally between the U.S. and Japan.  He graduated from Bucknell University in 1983, and received an M.F.A. from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.  It was during the six and a half years of studying in Japan that Fujimura began to assimilate the combinations of abstract expressionism explored in the U.S. with the traditional Japanese art of Nihonga.

Upon his return to the U.S., he began to exhibit his paintings in New York City, while continuing to show in Tokyo, and was honored in 1992 as the youngest artist ever to have had a piece acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. 

After 20 years as a successful artist in Japan and the U.S., Fujimura has become a voice of bi-cultural authority on the nature and cultural assessment of beauty, by both creating it and exploring its forms. His paintings address the creative process and explore what it means to see.  The work moves the observer from cognitive categorization to visceral experience.  In 1990, Mr. Fujimura founded The International Arts Movement (IAM) as a means for “renewing culture and the arts by…translating heavenly existence to the earthly,…translating the ‘substance of things hoped for’ with words, paint and other materials into both the content and form of art.”  Still directed by Fujimura, the group seeks to reconcile people of faith with artists, and to introduce artists to people of faith.

As an artist working from his studio near Ground Zero until the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, Fujimura was deeply affected by the tragic events of that day. But his art continues to speak of hope even in darkness, and the deeper reconsideration of life's meaning.  Many elements of his work as a painter, from the images he selects to the method he uses, are shaped by his commitments as an artistic Christian, a term he prefers to Christian artist.  He says, “God gave us this gift to create, and every artwork speaks of this reality.”  For him there is an underlying unity between art and its motivation, and for him and many other artists creativity is a way of communing with God.

Most recently, Fujimura's work, The Splendor of the Medium, a collection of paintings formed of carefully stone-ground minerals including azurite, malachite and cinnabar, has been showcased in New York City.  His works are represented by Sara Tecchia Roma Gallery in Chelsea, New York City as well as Sen Gallery in Tokyo, Japan.  Public collections include The Saint Louis Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and the Time Warner/ AOL/ CNN building in Hong Kong.  He was appointed to the National Council on the Arts, a six year Presidential appointment, in 2003.

It is our hope that the Great Conversations Speaker Series will facilitate an ongoing dialogue within this community and beyond on the pressing issues of our day.