【Artist Statement】

Taking the traditional format of still life painting as a starting point, this exhibition is an attempt to question the fluctuation of visual perception and the process of meaning generation of matter.

The vase is not just a container, but is also perceived as part of the face, prompting the viewer's perception of the object to actually be fluid, or by intentionally depicting an apple floating in the air, the time axis of the “still life” is unleashed.

Was it thrown or is it falling?”

Such visual disturbance also functions as a counter to the immediate consumption of information and fixation of meaning in contemporary society, and raises questions about uncertain information in an age of AI-generated images and fake news.

Is what we see in front of us really “real”?

And is the apple you are looking at really an apple?

Movement lurks within the stillness of a still-life painting.

New meanings and interpretations emerge from the cracks of a fixed image.

At that moment, our perception seems to open up again.

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Yohta Matsuoka (Japanese b.1978)

Born in Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture in 1978, Matsuoka graduated from Tama Art University. In 2004, he began his career as a live painter under the name “JONJON GREEN” in the Japanese street culture scene, and was greatly influenced by “Memphis,” a colorful and exciting design group that emerged mainly in Italy in the 1980s. In 2021, he began creating still-life paintings in which simple objects such as spheres and sticks are placed on a black-and-white screen in a primitive sense. Under his real name “Yohta Matsuoka,” he held the solo exhibition “Before Dawn / SORTone, Tokyo, 2022,” which attracted domestic and international attention, and the solo exhibition “Before Dawn / MOOSEY, Norwich, 2023” in the UK. Through the simulacra phenomenon obtained by accidental relationships between objects, he explores the creation of humor that is different from the original appearance of the objects.