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The Silence series first came out of my journey to write the Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering book (InterVarsity Press), prior to Martin Scorsese’s film, “Silence”. These works explore the extension of the recent Qu4rtets project, the earlier Junan Passion Panel series, and the installation series The Resurrection (collection of Yokohama Museum of Art). Waterfall Mansion Gallery in New York City has featured two exhibits “Silence and Beauty” (2016) and “Silence—Homage” (2017), and the monumental "Silence and Beauty - Mysterion" will be featured in Salisbury University Galleries in the fall of 2021.

Silence and Beauty —Mysterion painting
Silence and Beauty—Mysterion Mineral Pigments and Gesso on Canvas, 7′x33′ (11′ each), © 2017 Makoto Fujimura

In writing about Shusaku Endo’s post-war masterpiece “Silence”, I’ve begun to connect the aesthetics of 17th century Japan to the ensuing 250 years of trauma and persecution of Christians in Japan. Silence series is to explore the hidden dimensions of beauty, a beauty born of sacrifice and trauma. This series of works also honors my father’s legacy in the study of speech and hearing sciences, in remembrance of my father, Osamu Fujimura; depicting silence is also to depict what we “hear” through silence, to visually capture the “soundwaves” of silence. Many of the works in this series are pronounced in their refractive surfaces, and they are nearly impossible to photograph, so what is listed here is limited to the images that can be translated to digital media.

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