Fumiko Nakamura «My very modest series "Hamlet-child - 33 rooms in which there is no hero" was intended strictly for myself. To clarify that, I have to recount a few episodes. It started with a phenomenon some twenty years ago. I was at home watching the film Solaris by Andrey Tarkovsky on TV. And all of a sudden, up in the air above the TV set there appeared an excerpt from the movie Hamlet by the Lenfilm Studio. The protagonist walked around and you could see distinctly his face, whereas in the original film there appeared only his shadow. Later on, I did realize that twenty five years since I was watching the movie in the cinema I saw my impressions when I was watching the movie in the cinema. I was fifteen years old then and was completely overwhelmed by the hero of the drama: he spoke about the world in his own words and, to my mind, absolutely freely. But it was a Prince, eventhough a virtual Prince. The Prince lived his life on the screen and left us, once and for good.Why was he revived in my brain? I started to draw my series without realizing that my Prince was a child. And I began studying Russian by radio to be able to write a letter to Innokenty Mikhailovich Smoktunovsky, the actor, not knowing whether he was still alive. Two years later "my child", at his request, was there. This was owing to the help of a Russian writer, a very kind man, whom I did not know personally at that time. A year later the wonderful actor was no more. I visited St. Petersburg for the first time in the fall of 2007. I was taken then by songs of a rock-group of the 80s. I suddenly wished to wander around in the city where this music was born. So, I was in the state of euphoria, doing nothing. But sometimes, during journeys travellers are faced with uncomfortable questions: "Where to? Where from? And what are you, really?". I started drawing again, learned the elements of writing on the computer in Russian. Then I tried to find an Arts Gallery to visit once more the unforgettable St Petersburg, as person with a purpose. Last year I sent a letter of request to the Borey Arts Gallery, which was unfamiliar to me at the time. I wrote in it: "I believe, this is not an interpretation of the original drama, and not a parody but, rather, an allegory of a words-defying grief harbored by man at a loss to put it in his own words". It now seems to me that an open-ended ticket for "journey to the the internal world of a person" was sent to me by the sea of Solaris. A small house. Small rooms in it. It quite may be, they are familiar to me... from my childhood». Fumiko Nakamura Born in 1949 in the city of Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture, in north-eastern Japan. 1972 - graduated from the Iwate State University, fine arts course at the General Education Faculty and thereafter began working at an out-patient clinic in Shizuoka Prefecture; then at a private obstetrics clinic in Tokyo (since that time and until now lives in Tokyo) 1973 - worked in a canteen, then with a kigurumi troupe, in a company manufacturing personal seals 1974 - 1980 - work in a trading company 1981 - 1984 - took care of young children Since 1985 - a free-lance artist-illustrator Work experience: Creation of illustrations for textbooks, books about travel, needlework, tricks, funeral ceremonies, etc, for electronic products brochures, medical assistance, Buddhism, etc. Worked in the genre of experimental manga for children and of image characters. Group and personal exhibitions: 1989 - Toden Gallery, Tokyo 1991 - Takugin Foyer, Tokyo 1992 - Kinokuniya Gallery, Tokyo 1994 - Vildal Gallery, Tokyo 2003 - Kinoko Gallery, Kobe
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