Mr. Makoto Fujimura

Makoto Fujimura is a contemporary artist, curator, writer, and founder of the International Arts Movement and Fujimura Institute.

Fujimura was born in 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts. Educated bi-culturally between the U.S. and Japan, he graduated from Bucknell University in 1983 and received an MFA from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with a Japanese Governmental Scholarship. His thesis painting was purchased by the university, and he was invited to study in the Japanese Painting Doctorate program.

A presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts from 2003-2009, Fujimura served as an international advocate for the arts, speaking with decision makers and advising governmental policies on the arts. In 2014, the American Academy of Religion named Makoto Fujimura as its “2014 Religion and the Arts” award recipient. His work has been featured in numerous museum exhibits, including the Tikotin Museum in Israel and the Gonzaga Jundt Museum. The New York Times columnist David Brooks has called Fujimura’s work “a small rebellion against the quickening of time.” Poet Christian Wiman has termed Fujimura’s new book Art+Faith: A Theology of Making “a tonic for our atomized time.”

Fujimura is married to Haejin Shim Fujimura, the managing partner of Shim & Associates, P.C. and the CEO of Embers International, Inc. They work together to connect creation of beauty with bringing justice into the world to end human trafficking in our generation.

Related Trinity Forum Readings

Publications and Scholarly Works 

• Art+Faith: A Theology of Making (2021)

• Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life (2017)

• Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering (2016)

• Golden Sea (2013)

• ​Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture (2009)