New Arrival: Tomokazu Matsuyama put traditional Asian imagery into new expression

	Announcement

posted on Jan. 23, 2012

"Kirin Code Green" by Tomokazu Matsuyama

AZITO is pleased to introduce new artworks by Tomokazu Matsuyama.

"Kirin Code Green" by Tomokazu Matsuyama

"Shining Where You'd Be" by Tomokazu Matsuyama

After talking with Matsuyama and thinking of the feature of his work, one quote by Steve Jobs came up to my mind.

"I didn't invent the language or mathematics I use. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on. And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow." by Steve Jobs

Renovating knowledge from the past and our generation into a new value. I felt this mind-set was literally the same thing that Matsuyama is addressing through art.

Matsuyama has created a personal aesthetic world that comes and goes between the figurative and the abstract, the real and the imagined. His motifs are often taken from Edo-period woodblock prints and paintings but they present a refreshing appearance on life today. Blending artistic tropes from the East to West, he delivers a visual vocabulary that rectifies the past, just as it begins to explore our new aesthetics as Steve Jobs created iphone by combining, computer, mobile phone and google apps.

Eric Shicer, Director of the Andy Wahol museum, described his style as;
"a hip hop musician cutting and scratching and mixing variant sounds to innovate and perfect a new composition, but instead of using music, Tomokazu Matsuyama blends multiple images into a new visual culture that is easily understood regardless of national background."
by EricShiner in "Tomokazu Matsuyama: A Floating World Redux"

As it is getting easier to share thoughts and ideas globally thanks to internet, this mindset must be required more than ever to inovate a new value to the world. Be open to others, not only to the past but also to our neighbors. Even in my own country, there must be many kinds of communities and trends which I might have passed by unconsciously. Matsuyama's artwork reminds me of this important attitude.

text by Rasa Tsuda

Related Works


Shining Where You 'd Be
by Tomokazu Matsuyama
$3,800
painting


Kirin Code Green
by Tomokazu Matsuyama
$4,800
painting