WKM Gallery is pleased to present ‘Sky beyond words.’, a solo exhibition by Ryo Matsuoka. This exhibition marks Matsuoka’s second exhibition with WKM Gallery, having participated in the gallery’s inaugural group exhibition, ‘Metamorphosis: Japan’s Evolving Society’, in November 2023.
Matsuoka is an artist whose practice is defined by forms and colours that demonstrate a unique visual expression and a sense of liberation. His abstract works stem from a place of spontaneity that manifests in an interdisciplinary practice that includes painting, drawing, embroidery, murals and installations. His works are bold and vibrant clashes of colour that stretch across the surface of his works with a rhythmic cadence that capture the artist’s emotions and movements within the moment of creation.
Matsuoka began drawing at a young age, developing his practice organically within the context of the Japanese street culture scene of the 1990s. Finding himself within a milieu of various artists, graffiti writers, musicians and creatives, Matsuoka began a series of collaborative live painting events called ‘Tokyo Rooftop’, in which he would cover the roofs of various buildings throughout Tokyo with paper and paint under the open sky. These entirely improvised rooftop happenings created a space in which figures from the Tokyo street scene would gather and celebrate the process of pure creation and collaboration, forming a tight community, within which he was considered a pioneer. Matsuoka would continue to work within the street scene, creating large scale works that incorporated the energy and immediacy of graffiti but always in his distinctively abstract style that emerged entirely from his subconscious. Wholly fuelled by an inherent need to create, be that through drawing, painting, or sewing; the act of creation has become a part of his everyday life, capturing the colourful visions from his imagination.
Matsuoka’s ability to move between various techniques and traverse the boundaries between the street and fine art scenes with such freedom has seen his work be recognised and applauded by his fellow artists, collectors, galleries and also the world of fashion. In 2004, Matsuoka’s works were incorporated into a collection by Yohji Yamamoto and were seen on the runway of his collection at Paris Fashion Week. Most recently, Matsuoka has also worked with Louis Vuitton, creating large-scale paintings for their cafe in Osaka, as well as a mural for the store in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.
For this exhibition, Matsuoka will be presenting an exhibition of embroidered textile works of various sizes. For Matsuoka, working with textiles is interchangeable with a paintbrush, pencils, or the written word. However, what separates sewing and textiles from painting is the constraints and parameters set by the sewing machine itself. The sewing machine presents a more narrow frame of vision - the lines are created by the needle, thread, and the push and pull of the fabric - but it is the actual restriction of physical space in which to manoeuvre that creates for an interesting process. To create a line in a different direction requires the physical manipulation of the fabric, moving it around the single point of the needle, lifting and turning as he moves across the surface of the fabric. Changing colours also requires the machine to be rethreaded with a different spool of thread, whilst the layering of these different colours on top of one another creates a depth of texture and adds weight to the surface of the material in a way that differs from a painting. Using a sewing machine also prevents the entire fabric from being seen as whole or from a distance, meaning that Matsuoka is working with the materials at close proximity, focusing purely on the motion of production. This spontaneous use of fabric and thread brings to mind the work of Sonia Delaunay, whose exploration of geometry and colour through textiles, as well as many other mediums, focuses on the unification of sensation and colour. Like Delaunay, Matsuoka’s works are an expression of feeling and emotion through the abstract form, sewn together with lines of thread.
This emphasis on spontaneity and the pure abstract form draws parallels with many other abstract artists of the twentieth century, particularly those of the abstract expressionist movement. Like many artists that work in abstraction, Matsuoka’s works rely on the ‘action’ of the work’s creation, with gesture, surface and line taking form through a process of subconscious thought - akin to automatic writing. However, what sets Matsuoka apart from many other abstract artists, who often view their works as the physical representation of the inner psyche and suggest an internal struggle and hardship, Matsuoka’s works are instead a reflection of joy and the pure expression of a particular thought, feeling or emotion. The word ‘play’ is a phrase that recurs throughout Matsuoka’s description of his practice and it is precisely this sense of play, and an ability to retain a child-like innocence and connection between the act of creation and the act of playing that is most evident in his works. Despite the physical labour required for creating his works, in particular, his large-scale paintings or embroidery pieces, each work is a playground in which he is having the most fun.
‘Where is there? Where is here?
Flowers that bloom only there.
Flowers that bloom only here.
Tokyo. Hong Kong.
I close my eyes. In front of the picture. I don't need anything else.
There. As in the beginning.
Beauty will simply,
exist. As it is. As it was.
Play.’
Ryo Matsuoka
