2025 Honorary Degree Recipient

Makoto Fujimura

Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa

Makoto Fujimura is a leading contemporary artist whose work has been featured in galleries and museums around the world, including The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, The Huntington Library, the Tikotin Museum, Belvedere Museum, C3M North Bund Art Museum, and Pola Museum. His process-driven, refractive “slow art” has been described by David Brooks of The New York Times as “a small rebellion against the quickening of time.”

Fujimura is the author of five books: Art Is: A Journey Into the Light (Yale University Press, forthcoming October 2025), Art+Faith: A Theology of Making, Silence and Beauty, Refractions, and Culture Care. He is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2023 Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life and the American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Religion and the Arts award. From 2003 to 2009, he served as a Presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts. He is a celebrated speaker and advocate for the arts. Fujimura is an Equity in Action Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania for the 2024-25 academic year.