We were once capable of distinguishing between categories. A history painting was distinct from an illustration on a chocolate tin and it had no more than a passing acquaintance with the illuminated book frontispiece.
In a world of seamlessly fused aesthetics, this is the case no longer. Nishimura’s oils and temperas could make a claim on any number of traditions. Yet they belong to none that warrants an export licence. His needlessly oversized illustrations on linen, rendered in a twee “young adult” style, project suburban Japanese lives. Smaller works attempt a “Richter for otakus” mood that barely rises to a meme. What genre, old or new, these brush strokes belong to seems moot.
In London, such subjects and objects cry for context. Nishimura’s thin paint layers afford them too little, the whole show failing to fall into a viable category. Such dislocation was once the stuff of excitement. Today, it barely reflects its own homelessness.
