Reference Library

MERGING CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL IMAGERY IN BOLD TABLEAUX, TOMOKAZU MATSUYAMA BRIDGES TIME AND SPACE

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TOMOKAZU MATSUYAMA’S STUDIO is located in a former Brooklyn rope factory, on the northernmost stretch of Greenpoint.

Its spacious white walls are perfect for hanging the artist’s large-scale, wildly inventive paintings: colorful, cultural mashups where Japanese references seamlessly blend with silhouettes from fashion and lifestyle magazines. The result is a visual medley that looks uncannily familiar and foreign at once. Realism is not the goal. Neither is a certain period or place. Figures can resemble anime characters or model Gigi Hadid. Fauna, meanwhile, might be lifted from the woodblock prints of Watanabe Seitei. Greenery might nod to Henri Rousseau. “I mix things to be completely freed from nationality and culture,” he says. “My work is not about East meets West. It’s about the blend.”

One main source of inspiration turns out to be, in fact, the pages of this publication. Like a DJ, Matsuyama has sampled bedrooms, stairways, porches, and more from