Hiroyuki Matsuura SUPER ACRYLIC SKIN - Origination

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP (Beijing) is pleased to announce Hiroyuki Matsuura’s solo exhibition SUPER ACRYLIC SKIN — Origination, from April 15 (Saturday). This is Matsuura’s second solo exhibition in Beijing, thirteen years apart from his first exhibition.

Hiroyuki Matsuura was born in 1964 in Tokyo. His solo exhibition Super Acrylic Skin at Tokyo Gallery in 2005 marked his turn from designer to artist, and he has since expanded his art form to include painting, sculpture, and prints, presenting his works in Japan and abroad. In the 2017 exhibition Cool Japan: World Fascination in Focus held in the Netherlands at Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden) and Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam), and in Belgium at Museum aan de Stroom (Antwerp), he presented Uki-uki (2012), a four-meter-high large-scale work that was used as the key visual of the exhibition. In 2020, he held a solo exhibition entitled SUPER ACRYLIC SKIN—Quiet World at Eslite Gallery in Taipei, attracting significant interest as a response to the quiet world of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The diverse characters that appear in Matsuura’s works, are captured in bold close-up compositions that fill the painting. They reside there with a suggestive expression, at times flattering, at times provocative, and at times casting a cold gaze at us. In today’s world where images are reproduced in massive quantities, characters inundate everyday life through the marketplace. For Matsuura, whose job was to create such characters who are consumed and forgotten day by day, they constituted a familiar presence despite being imaginary. With their “Super Acrylic Skin,” the characters appear in the paintings with an inner life that cannot be seen from the outside, asserting their existence that goes beyond mere empty anthropomorphic images.

The exhibition title SUPER ACRYLIC SKIN—Origination reflects the artist’s wish, twenty-three years after turning to art, to go back to his point of origin to reflect on his current work. This exhibition showcases around thirty new works, including paintings, a 3D printed work, and model figures. The 3D printed work builds on Windy Bunny, which Matsuura created in 2007. The young child in a rabbit costume will make its reappearance after a sixteen-year absence. The new series PICTO inspired by pictograms and the large-scale work Uki-uki (2012) that received critical acclaim in the Cool Japan: World Fascination in Focus exhibition will also be presented.