Maki Nakamura was born not far from Hiroshima, on Japan's largest island. A sculptress, she has lived among United States, France, Japan, and Italy. Now she lives part of the year in Italy, at Carrara, an active member of the international community working in contemporary art which continues to draw on traditional materials and techniques, in her case oriental. Her sculptures, almost exclusively in marble, manage to effect the zen paradox of giving substance to the immaterial and a 'local habitation and a name' to the void. The present volume records her work over the last fifteen years, with particular attention to work created specifically for the urban context, ending with Passage, executed for the new Fujita Palace in Osaka, which in 1997 won the Osaka Public Art Prize.