Masako Nunokawa’s artistic practice is grounded in a background that spans design, architecture, and academic research. After a career in editorial and graphic design in New York and corporate marketing in Japan, she returned to study architecture and cognitive neuroscience before completing a Ph.D. in media and cultural studies, where she examined the structure of the art world and emerging fields such as the NFT market.

 

Since 2022, she has actively participated in public art competitions and exhibitions, presenting primarily acrylic paintings alongside digital and mixed media works. Her compositions often reflect the clarity of form shaped by architectural training, while her study of neuroscience informs a sensitivity to perception and creative processes.

Recent works draw inspiration from her travels across Japan, including Kyoto, Nara, Ise, Izumo, and Takachiho, as well as the

 

Shikoku 88-temple pilgrimage in 2024. These journeys deepened her engagement with themes of Japanese spirituality, place, and cultural memory. In 2025 she established her atelier in Sapporo, dedicating herself fully to painting.

Nunokawa’s style balances structural clarity with intuitive expression. Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, she also incorporates digital media and materials such as brass wire, which extend the pictorial surface into physical space. Her layered approach combines planes of color, line, and texture to create depth and rhythm, moving between bold contrasts and subtle tonalities.

 

These choices reflect both her grounding in design and her sensitivity to Japanese aesthetics, resulting in works that explore memory, resonance, and contemporary experimentation.

 

The Shroud.m series exemplifies this hybrid approach, part painting, part relief, and close to installation. Each work is built on stretched canvas with acrylic paint, gold leaf, and gold-plated fragments, accented by beads, imitation pearls, and resin. Brass nails anchor translucent acrylic rods, which cut across the surface like rays of light, extending the composition into three-dimensional space. Metallic textures, radiant colors, and intersecting linear structures create luminous intensity and a sense of cosmic order, placing her practice at the intersection of tradition and experimental form.

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