West Bund Art & Design

Matsuyama’s work revolves around his own bicultural experience, growing up in Japan and America, by bringing together aspects of contrasting aesthetic systems. He then blurs the border by cramming overwhelming amount of references that he responds to, which relates to the present-day lifestyle of living in a society saturated with information. His artistic choice of repositioning traditional icons within a broader global context creates a distinctive style that resists cultural categorization. While his artworks themselves are impressive enough, it is not only the aesthetics of them that makes Matsuyama’s painting contemporary; it is his art making process of mashup-ing/editing images and allowing it to naturally portray what is “now” is an entirely new art form. By raising questions of national and individual identity through the formal qualities and subject matters of his paintings, Matsuyama examines the “natural chaos” of our social environments and challenges the viewers to confront their own conceptions of cultural homogeneity.

KOTARO NUKAGA invites you to visit the booth N309.