Sawako Nasu uses the language of painting to talk about distance, connection, and relationship. When reflecting on her own work, Nasu says, “How can I touch old paintings?” Underlying Nasu’s work is a sense of the absolute, unbridgeable distance that lies between the classical and modernist paintings she admires and their times and herself today, and it is this sense of distance that gives her art its thorough vision.
Nasu’s approach to the possibilities of painting by contrasting the era of classical painting with the era to which she herself belongs as a modern artist, goes beyond the scope of her personal interests and reflects a contemporary awareness of what is possible at the edge of art history, which is constantly being renewed.