Hino Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Yoko Matsumoto from Monday, May 8th, 2023.

Yoko Matsumoto graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Tokyo University of the Arts in 1960. She has been painting ever since. In her 60 year plus artistic career, although her work has stylistically changed several times, she has never wavered in her pursuit of an “autonomous” approach to painting with an emphasis on strong structure created through the balance of color and form.

Matsumoto began working on green oil paintings in 2005 after completing her iconic pink acrylic series, which are characterized by their indistinct appearance, and are often considered synonymous with Matsumoto's oeuvre. She considers the green works to be an extension of her drawings, and sometimes describes them as large-scale drawings. The abundant use of charcoal and oil pastel supports this, and Matsumoto's “ideal” painting, according to her, must always be somehow contrary to her own expectations and transcend her own spirit. There is no plan or rough sketch, much less a concrete object, but rather the actual act of drawing / painting and the instantaneous action of working on the object that emerges on the surface establishes her paintings. The meaning of "drawing" can be interpreted in various ways. If it is considered as the act or process of bringing form and tonality to a surface, it is natural to assume that Matsumoto feels a sense of drawing in her own works, especially in her oil paintings, in which the traces of drawn lines carry an attempt to capture something.

In addition to the green paintings, Matsumoto also frequently produces white works. It is clear that Matsumoto consistently engages with color, but the color white has always been used alongside a variety of other colors, and she has said that white plays a leading role in the articulation of painterly space. Indeed, there are very few works by Matsumoto that do not incorporate white, which reveals how important it is for the artist to consider white as a necessary color to provide a strong structure.

This will be Yoko Matsumoto's first solo exhibition at Hino Gallery in three and a half years, and all of her recent works will be on view. We hope you will feel a sense of the artist’s "present" sensibility: her insatiable desire to continue painting is evident in each of the individual works and throughout the entire installation.

All of Yoko Matsumoto's works, from acrylics and oil paintings to drawings and watercolors, which are in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, are available to view in "MOT Collection: Membrane of the Time/Breathing" at the museum until June 18th. In addition, one of her oil paintings from the 1960s will be exhibited at the "60th Anniversary Re: Startline 1963-1970/2023 Sympathetic Relations between the Museums and Artists as Seen in the Trends in Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition" at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto from April 28th to July 2nd. This is a tremendous opportunity to see Matsumoto's paintings from the early period to the present, and we hope you will take the opportunity to visit the exhibitions as well as the solo exhibition of her newest works at Hino Gallery.


*No opening reception will be held. Please wear a mask if possible when you come to the gallery.