Who is …
Fujiko Nakaya is a Japanese artist born in 1933 in Sapporo. A pioneer of environmental art, she is known for her fog sculptures and ephemeral, immersive installations.
For the festival, Fujiko Nakaya presents her new fog sculpture in Honfleur, in the Garden of Personalities.
Portrait of the artist
Fujiko Nakaya began her career as a painter, having trained in Paris. The daughter of a physicist, she was interested in the relationship between science and art from the start. This passion has guided her work towards experiments combining technology and art.
Fujiko Nakaya created her first fog installation in 1970 for the Osaka World Expo, where she produced a fog sculpture enveloping the Pepsi Pavilion building. This first fog work marked the beginning of a career spanning more than half a century, during which the artist has continuously presented her installations around the world.
And what about Impressionism, then?
Fujiko Nakaya's work resonates deeply with the legacy of Claude Monet, the master of Impressionism.
Three oil “panels” joined on canvas mounted on the wall, 200×1275.
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée de l'Orangerie) / Hervé Lewandowski
Influenced from a young age by Eugène Boudin, the master of cloud painting, Monet sought to capture the fleeting impression left by the natural elements. Fujiko Nakaya continues this quest. By reproducing nature and mist, she does not seek to freeze the moment on canvas, but to create a direct sensory experience. Monet painted light passing through clouds; Nakaya invites the public to enter a cloud of mist. Her works, composed solely of water, are in perpetual transformation, escaping the artist's control to belong to the public who walk through them.
This approach is echoed in his installation located in the Garden of Personalities in Honfleur, conceived during a residency at the Ferme Saint-Siméon, a place where Monet stayed 150 years ago.
How is it done?
Fujiko Nakaya's fog sculptures are created using only water. The system for producing them was invented by the artist in collaboration with engineer Thomas Mee in 1969.
Fujiko Nakaya's installations are produced using a complex system of high-pressure pumps and rows of nozzles that emit microscopic water droplets, creating fog. This is how the natural and artistic processes converge.
