Hiroshi Senju (1958–) is a contemporary Japanese painter born in Tokyo. Having studied Japanese painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he has developed a modern spatial expression of waterfalls, cliffs and the grand flow of nature, whilst utilising traditional materials such as mineral pigments and gofun. The ‘Waterfall’ series is a representative body of work that epitomises Senju’s oeuvre.

His waterfall paintings possess the power to convey not only the form of the water, but also the sound of its fall and the chill in the air. The contrast between the dark background and the white water flow is simple, yet it gives rise to a vast sense of space. It is striking how the delicacy of traditional materials coexists with the sense of scale characteristic of contemporary art.