Solitude
March 19 to April 19, 2025
KOTARO NUKAGA（Roppongi）
KOTARO NUKAGA（Roppongi）is pleased to present ‘Solitude‘, a solo exhibition by Tomona Matsukawa, running from March 19 to April 19, 2025. Expanding on themes from her 2023 solo show ‘Dear‘, Matsukawa explores the disconnect between societal expectations of women and their personal identities. In ”Solitude”, she refines these ideas, presenting works that examine the state of being alone—free from imposed roles and external gaze.
Matsukawa emphasizes that ‘Solitude‘ does not signify loneliness or isolation but rather self-sufficiency and quiet strength. In her twenties, she unconsciously internalized societal expectations of femininity, shaped largely by the male gaze. Now in her mid-thirties, she asks, “Who am I beyond gender and age, beyond the labels assigned to me?”
Her artistic process is rooted in firsthand narratives. She interviews someone, sometimes engaging strangers in public spaces, listening to their stories, and later recalling fragments that shape her compositions. Though resembling oral history, her method is not academic documentation but a source of personal inspiration.
This approach, which she has pursued since her twenties, ensures her themes remain deeply personal. “I interview women of all ages, but I often find myself drawn to voices from my own generation,” she notes. As a result, her figures, though others, carry deeply personal dimensions. Since graduating from Tama Art University in 2011, Matsukawa has examined societal roles assigned to women—daughter, wife, mother—while maintaining her identity as a painter. In this exhibition, Solitude manifests not as personal history but as a nuanced articulation of individual existence.
For instance, in And before I knew it, almost 8 years had passed.（2025）, a waving hand appears as a blurred afterimage, reminiscent of a camera’s motion blur. Behind it stands a sharply defined door, illuminated by strong sunlight. Matsukawa explains that the inspiration for this piece came from a woman who once had a codependent relationship with her mother. When she finally gained independence, what remained most vivid in her memory was not her mother waving goodbye, but the door behind her. This work encapsulates the moment of breaking free, where the door serves as a threshold between past entanglement and newfound autonomy. Such realizations, born from subtle observations, affirm that solitude is not abstract but tangible and often poignant.
Similarly, Tonight, was I really with someone? （2025）depicts a kitchen sink in a small apartment, cluttered with half-filled wine glasses and cups. These remnants hint at a home gathering but also suggest the stillness that follows. A single white flower, casually discarded in a glass, heightens the sensation of a suspended time. Matsukawa frequently integrates such quietude into her work. The shift from “time spent with others” to “time alone” is a universal experience—one that can evoke nostalgia, longing, or even unease.
While Matsukawa’s paintings are highly detailed and “realistic,” they are meticulously composed, often resembling film stills or fragments of advertisements. They resonate with the filtered visual experiences of digital culture, yet they transcend mere replication. Matsukawa refers to this quality of painting—its ability to reconstruct reality through a personal lens—as “fiction” in contrast to photography.
In ‘Solitude‘, Matsukawa reflects on how her identity as an artist has been shaped within feminist discourse, a framework that has at times influenced how her work is perceived. Feminism is often approached through the lens of relational dynamics, yet her “fictional” paintings resist fixed interpretations. Unlike documentary photography, which captures a specific moment, her works invite ambiguity and projection. They emerge from the interplay of three perspectives: the voices of the women she interviews, her own selective framing, and the viewer’s subjective response. This layered approach, combined with the high fidelity of her compositions, lends her work a theatrical quality—one in which even the viewer’s gaze becomes part of the scene. Matsukawa’s practice engages with the complexities of representation, ultimately offering a meditation on individual existence.
Rosalind Krauss, in The Optical Unconscious（1993）, writes,
“Photography’s picture can never be anything but frozen movement, the gesture deprived of its inner life. Painting, she thinks, in its very stillness, its carefully structured immobility, is the true analogue of the visual completeness of this mastery by the gaze.” (i)
Krauss describes this as the eye’s ability to “outrun” motion, “synthesizing it into the single image of its ‘meaning.’” Painting, as described by Krauss through Hélène Parmelin through Krauss,
“…is the necessary medium within which the blade thrust of this gaze which is both lightning-quick and timeless—hanging as it does in the perpetual suggestiveness of this race between the tortoise and the hare—will be able to swell to infinity.“
The painterly “fiction” Matsukawa proposes in ‘Solitude‘ offers an expanded vantage point—one that transcends roles and identities, fostering empathy and introspection. The exhibition title speaks not of loneliness, but of the strength in standing alone. To live in relation to others, yet at times to stand as an individual—this is not a lament but an affirmation of selfhood. Matsukawa’s paintings quietly invite the viewer to engage with these subtle emotional nuances.
This exhibition offers a moment to reconsider our own solitude and its significance. We invite you to experience Matsukawa’s paintings, and we hope the works will resonate with you.
(i) Rosalind E. Krauss, The optical unconscious, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, p.210.
ARTIST
DATE
March 19 to April 19, 2025 11:00 – 18:00（Tue – Sat） *Closed on Sun, Mon and Public Holidays *Closed on March 21 & March 22, 2025 Opening Reception: March 19, 16:00 – 18:00 *Tomona Matsukawa will be present.
VENUE