Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs. Hiroshi Senju is not simply an artist who paints waterfalls. He is the creator of a world where water becomes the very embodiment of time flowing, inevitably, like our lives. In his New York studio, this Japanese man transforms mineral pigments into true natural phenomena on mulberry paper. At 67 years old, he continues to pour his colors like a contemporary alchemist, creating works that defy our perception of traditional Japanese art.
Each of Senju’s waterfalls is a visual paradox: both still and in perpetual motion. It is precisely this tension that draws us in, hypnotizes us, keeps us rooted in front of his monumental canvases for minutes that seem eternal. The water falls but never touches the ground. The foam forms but never dissipates. Time is suspended in an eternal present.
His monumental work “The Fall” presented at the Venice Biennale in 1995 became emblematic of his art. This 14-meter-wide waterfall seemed to emerge from nothingness, creating a deafening silent noise. This work earned him an honorable mention, the first Asian artist to receive this distinction for a painting. Critics noted how visitors suddenly became silent before this immense whiteness on a black background. As if the water imposed its own language on the observer.
Senju’s technique is interesting in its apparent simplicity. He typically pours the pigments from the top of the canvas, letting gravity partially orchestrate the work. As art critic Elliat Albrecht points out: “He has been suggested to be an alchemist, transforming the pigments of the earth into water and air to explore the poetics of the material world” [1]. But this description, though poetic, does not do justice to the complexity of his process. For Senju does not merely pour; he guides, controls, adjusts, with near-obsessive precision.
As a master of nihonga, this traditional Japanese painting using natural pigments, Senju could have been content to be a respectful guardian of this heritage. Instead, he fused this millennial tradition with American abstract expressionism, creating a visual language that is both deeply rooted and resolutely contemporary. This hybridization is not a mere stylistic exercise but a profound reflection on our human condition in the era of globalization.
The Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida, in his concept of “basho” (place), spoke of the necessity of a space where contradictions can coexist without destroying each other [2]. Senju’s waterfalls perfectly embody this idea. They are both Japanese culture and universal expression, tradition and innovation, nature and artifice, instant and eternity. They create this “basho” where our gaze can rest, lose itself, and finally find itself again.
Many critics have long resisted the appeal of his waterfalls. Too beautiful, too accessible, too… perfect. Some suspected them of being decorative objects disguised as contemporary art. But a deeper analysis reveals the subtlety of their engagement with our fractured era. In a world where water becomes a precious and contested resource, where natural disasters multiply, these waterfalls are not soothing images; they are ecological memento mori.
Take “Ryujin I” and “Ryujin II”, those fluorescent waterfalls he presented in Venice in 2015. Viewed under black light, they take on an almost radioactive dimension, evoking both supernatural beauty and potential contamination. This ambivalence is at the heart of Senju’s recent work, an ambivalence that forces us to reconsider our relationship with nature in the Anthropocene era.
The filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky wrote that “water is a mystical and magical element” [3]. In his films, notably “The Sacrifice”, water appears as a symbol of purification but also of destruction. Senju’s waterfalls carry this same duality. They draw us in with their peaceful beauty while reminding us of water’s potentially destructive force. “The waterfalls (Heraclitean symbols of life, but also, over time, forces that can destroy something as apparently permanent as rocks)” as Albrecht aptly notes [1].
Senju’s approach to light is particularly revealing. Unlike the usual practice of displaying nihonga paintings in dimly lit rooms, he prefers his to be seen in natural light. This preference is not trivial. It testifies to his conviction that art must live in our world, breathe with it, change with it. When architect Ryue Nishizawa designed the Hiroshi Senju Karuizawa Museum in 2011, this philosophy translated into a building with glass walls, where the boundaries between interior and exterior blur.
This museum is itself a total work of art, where architecture and painting dialogue with the surrounding landscape. The sloping floor follows the natural slope of the terrain, creating a physical progression that accompanies our emotional progression through the exhibition. As Senju explains: “I believe that during my life, the world will become a place where there are no walls, and where we trust each other. Consequently, the Karuizawa Museum is itself a message to the 21st-century world of a world without borders” [1].
This vision of a world without borders may seem naive in our time of walls and resurgent nationalism. Yet it is at the heart of Senju’s artistic practice. As he asserts: “For me, there is no border between figurative painting and abstract painting. I move freely between the two” [1]. This freedom of movement is more than an aesthetic approach; it is an ethical stance in a world obsessed with classifications.
Today, Senju’s works adorn public spaces such as Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, Kongobuji Temple at Mount Koya, and even the Shofuso Japanese House in Philadelphia. In each of these places, his waterfalls create a pause, a moment of contemplation in the relentless flow of modern life. They invite us to slow down, to breathe, to truly look.
But make no mistake, these works are not mere exercises in visual meditation. They carry a subtle critique of our relationship with time. In a culture dominated by the instantaneous, the immediate, instant gratification, Senju offers a different temporal experience. His waterfalls confront us with geological time, a time that precedes and will outlast humanity.
During an interview, Senju shared this revealing anecdote: “I tried to paint my first waterfall after following a herd of wild deer in a remote region of Hawaii. I glimpsed a stag that quickly disappeared into the trees. Later, in trying to recreate the scene, I decided to invoke the image of falling water as a way to suggest the power and sacredness of the animal” [4]. This genesis is particularly significant; the waterfall is not an end in itself but a means to evoke something elusive, fleeting.
This quest for the elusive is at the heart of Senju’s work. Like any great artist, he seeks to make the invisible visible, to give form to the formless. His waterfalls are physical manifestations of a reality that constantly escapes us: the passage of time, the flow of life, our own mortality.
In his most recent works, notably those using fluorescent pigments, Senju explores what he calls “the mysterious and mystical quality of the night and that part of us that resides there” [4]. These nocturnal waterfalls, viewed under black light, create an almost dreamlike experience. They remind us that the night is not simply the absence of day but a space-time with its own qualities, its own existence.
It is interesting to note how Senju, after forty years of career and more than 10,000 works produced, remains unsatisfied. As he confides: “For 40 years, I have faced my paintings with fervor, whatever the period. Yet, looking at my past works now, I find myself thinking that they are all quite amateurish” [4]. This chronic dissatisfaction is the driving force behind his continued creativity. It testifies to a rare humility for an artist of his caliber. In an era where contemporary art often seems reduced to spectacular gestures or obscure concepts, Senju’s work reminds us that simplicity can be profound. A waterfall, what could be more banal? And yet, in his hands, this universal motif becomes a portal to fundamental existential questions.
The most impressive thing about Senju’s work is perhaps its ability to create multisensory experiences from an essentially visual medium. As he explains: “When you eat, you experience food through multiple senses: temperature, texture, taste, and sight. Fundamentally, art can be experienced with all your senses. Each sense has a strong relationship with another” [1]. Before his waterfalls, one almost hears the sound of water, feels the humidity in the air, perceives the freshness of the foam.
This synesthetic dimension is particularly present in his installation at Kongobuji Temple. The fusuma (sliding paper doors) he created for this sacred place transform the architectural space into a total immersive experience. The visitor is no longer just a spectator but a participant in a spatial choreography where architecture, painting, and spirituality meet.
The world of contemporary art often remains skeptical of artists who turn to spirituality. Too often, it is a pose, a new age veneer over conceptual emptiness. But Senju’s work escapes this trap. His spirituality is not superficial; it is intrinsic to his practice. It resides in his relationship with materials, in his creative process, in his conception of time.
In 2020, Senju received the 77th Imperial Prize and the Japan Art Academy Prize for his outstanding achievements. In 2022, he was elected to the Japan Art Academy, becoming the youngest artist to receive this honor. These institutional recognitions confirm what many already knew: Senju is one of Japan’s most important living artists.
But beyond these honors, what makes his work truly valuable is its ability to touch us, to make us feel something in an increasingly anesthetized world. In a recent interview, he stated: “Today, with small differences, people fight, hatred grows, and wars begin. But the natural world is a place of refuge and common ground that we share, transcending natural, cultural, and ideological borders” [4].
This vision of the natural world as a refuge and common ground is at the heart of Senju’s artistic project. His waterfalls are not images of waterfalls; they are proposals for a different way of being in the world, of inhabiting time, of coexisting with nature.
As we navigate an uncertain present and a worrying future, Senju’s work offers us a moment of pause, a breath. Not as an escape from reality but as a deeper immersion in it. For what his waterfalls ultimately show us is that beauty is not the opposite of truth; it is its purest manifestation.
- Albrecht, E. (2017). “No Need for Walls.” Ocula Magazine.
- Nishida, K. (1926). “Logic of Place and Religious Worldview.” Iwanami Shoten.
- Tarkovsky, A. (1989). “Sculpting in Time.” Cahiers du cinema.
- “Confronting the ‘Inadequate Self’.” (2019). My Philosophy Global.
