​Untitled (2023) 

23.8"×19.6"  (606mm × 500mm ) (F12)

Oil on canvas

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Nami Shibata
 

Nami Shibata creates finely composed figurative paintings distinguished by their disciplined brushwork and quiet emotional presence. Balancing technical precision with subtle psychological depth, the works capture moments that feel both deeply personal and universally familiar.

 

What stays with me about Nami Shibata's work is its restraint.

The figures are rendered with remarkable care, yet the paintings never seem eager to explain themselves. 

In the work I encountered, a young student gazes down at a smartphone, absorbed in a moment that feels both ordinary and strangely distant. The scene is familiar, but the mood remains difficult to define.

Perhaps that is what makes not only this work, but much of Shibata's work, so compelling.

It captures a feeling many of us recognize but rarely articulate. A quiet moment at the end of the day, suspended somewhere between reflection, uncertainty, and possibility.

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2020 Solo exhibition “Form” Mizoe Gallery/Fukuoka/Tokyo

2017 Shell Art Award Artist Selection 2017 The National Art Center, Tokyo

2016 Solo exhibition “Montage” Mizoe Gallery/Fukuoka

2016 Solo exhibition “Figure” Takashi Somemiya Gallery/Tokyo

2014 “Actor” exhibition Takashi Somemiya Gallery, Tokyo