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Lot Essay
This painting Hollow Moon Hypothesis (Lot 127) has dual reference to the canons of Eastern and Western art history. The work was influenced by Takebayashi Tadashichi Takashige by Ogata Gekko, 1902, against expressive floral patterns appropriated by Birds and Flowers of Spring and Summer by court painter Kano Eino from Kano School in late 17th century.
Tomokazu Matsuyama has quite literally taken his inspiration from the important paintings of Japan’s past, from Ukiyo-e, and from a wide variety of Western sources, such as Abstract Expressionist painters of the New York School to create an effect that mimics a gestural approach, with a painstakingly precise technique of layering paint in a very controlled manner. Matsuyama has blended all of them into a most contemporary amalgamation that very actively erases the boundaries between nations, mindsets, art histories and aesthetic tropes.
Tomokazu Matsuyama has quite literally taken his inspiration from the important paintings of Japan’s past, from Ukiyo-e, and from a wide variety of Western sources, such as Abstract Expressionist painters of the New York School to create an effect that mimics a gestural approach, with a painstakingly precise technique of layering paint in a very controlled manner. Matsuyama has blended all of them into a most contemporary amalgamation that very actively erases the boundaries between nations, mindsets, art histories and aesthetic tropes.