Untitled by Tomoya Matsuzaki

Tomoya Matsuzaki (b. 1977, Fukuoka, Japan) makes paintings and drawings that operate as both material objects and spatial constructs. Working on irregular, hand-formed plaster slabs and torn fragments of paper, including reclaimed bags and packaging, he builds his surfaces through accumulated layers of conscious and subconscious mark-making. Chalky pigments, pastel, and graphite are pressed into the support until the gesture becomes inseparable from the ground.

The resulting works carry a quietly psychological register. Soft halos, hovering suns, and submerged horizons emerge from densely worked fields, only to recede again into the weave of the paper. Forms appear and dissolve. The pictorial space remains unresolved, holding opposing impulses – figuration and abstraction, intention and accident, presence and erasure,  in continuous tension.

Having lived in the UK since 1997, Matsuzaki absorbed the subdued tonalities of British landscape painting, where the view is treated less as a fixed scene than as a sensation: muted, overcast, atmospheric. As the artist puts it: “The world, illuminated by the light that reaches through the thin filter of clouds, is pale and faint… Landscapes are a manifestation of one’s emotion. The landscape you are looking at is the place where you now find yourself.”

His work has been shown at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo; Sid Motion Gallery, London; the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (John Moores Painting Prize 2018); and Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea. He lives and works in London.