Tatsuya Matsushita "Emo-Geo"

Margin

Finished

Artists

Tatsuya Matsushita

Born in Aichi in 1988, Tatsuya Matsushita graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2006. Since 2022, he has moved his base of activities to New York, where he works as a 3DCG designer at the Matsuyama Studio led by Tomokazu Matsuyama, while also pursuing his artistic endeavors. Matsushita has utilized various materials and tools such as expanded polystyrene, 3D pens, resin, and bronze to create a wide range of works including paintings and sculptures.

In his two-dimensional works for this exhibition, Matsushita creates visual metaphors for the relationship between human emotions and reason through abstract forms and textures. At the top of the works, fine grain textures resembling villi in the small intestine are painted using the melted woodgrain detail from ABS resin used for 3D printing with a 3D pen. The intestine, often referred to as the "second brain," is considered an organ that governs emotions, and Matsushita metaphorically equates these textured surfaces with emotions.

Below, square color fields with traces of brush strokes spread out, and Matsushita regards these abstract forms of squares, which do not exist in the external world, as existing in the brain as a recognition, thus using square color fields as a metaphor for the brain or reason. By incorporating optical elements such as horizontal and vertical lines overlapping within the color fields, he expresses fluctuations.

Matsushita says of his works, "They are all about human beings." Comparing the two-dimensional works to the structure of the human body, the positioning of the textured visceral-like parts representing the intestine and the solid and orderly parts representing the brain form an inverted composition. This inversion is reminiscent of the views of Naofumi Miki, an anatomist who greatly influenced Matsushita, regarding the superiority of visceral sensation and the rhythm inherent in nature, which modern humans have lost sight of, from the perspectives of physiology and embryology.

Furthermore, the concept of "visual tactility," which Matsushita discovered and has been working on in his study of modern Japanese art, is carried over into the works of this exhibition. It evokes a unique texture that appeals visually, reminiscent of the avant-garde artist Tetsumi Kudo, known for his provocative style.

The title of this exhibition, "Emo-Geo," encapsulates Matsushita's unique concept underlying his new works. It originates from the reinterpretation of the trends in minimalism since the 1960s, the reinterpretation of geometric forms that emerged in the 1980s as metaphors for societal order, and references to Baudrillard's simulacra in "Neo-Geo." Matsushita further reinterprets this by incorporating organic textures into geometric color fields, attempting to conceptually express the mobilization of people through emotions and empathy in contemporary society.

In this exhibition, which marks Matsushita's first solo exhibition in Tokyo in 13 years, approximately ten new works in two-dimensional and three-dimensional formats will be presented. On March 1st, Tatsuya Matsushita will temporarily return from New York to hold an opening reception.

Schedule

Mar 1 (Fri) 2024-Mar 23 (Sat) 2024