A Lighthouse called Kanata proudly presents All is Fulfilled , a solo exhibition by Kyoto based painter Keisuke Matsuda, featuring fourteen new works created specifically for this presentation at our new gallery in Omotesando, Tokyo, Japan.

As art critic Minoru Shimizu says of the artist, his works are not abstract, for he paints with clear intent; and yet they are not representational, for what appears on the surface cannot be named as any familiar figuration. Instead, singular and difficult-to-describe forms are flung across the plane—or into space itself. One may need a moment to acclimate before recognizing the charm: the freedom and fluidity that accompany what at first glance appears rough, the buoyant strangeness and humor of his forms, the exquisitely chosen colors.

Duchamp left behind an epitaph: “It is always the others who die.” Indeed, no matter how much something is explained in words, life is full of experiences that one must encounter oneself. From “birth” to “death,” everything happens for the first time—even to the most ordinary child. Faced with painting’s impasse—where no matter what one paints or how, the sense of déjà vu (that polished, cynical feeling) cannot be wiped away—artists thought the following: Painting must be understood as a proper noun. No matter how banal or kitsch its appearance, I experience it for the first time. Painting is what I, this singular self, paint—and what paints me in return. In the 2000s, many artists emerged who compensated for this tautology with ever more crafted, artisanal techniques. Today the market is awash in paintings overflowing with narrative and explanation—pseudo-confessional works that proclaim their meanings and leave nothing unsaid. Standing apart from the cynical painters and the “this-self ” painters, Keisuke Matsuda possessed genuine “things to paint.” These “things to paint” arise beyond the point where one has discarded the self, the motif, and even the manner of depiction.

The artist describes his own process: “When I am completely focused in the studio, the world and myself begin to compress. Then, at a certain instant, they fold together, and my-self become the world. In the next moment, the world peels away again, leaving an imprint adhered inside me. That trace is volatile—it fades quickly—so before it disappears, I hurry to retrace it. That becomes the work. The experience of ‘self = world,’ prior to the division of subject and object, is the reason I continue to paint.”

Indeed, the characteristics of his work follow directly from this principle: his disinterest in painterly effect; the rough, rapid strokes and lines that pursue evaporating forms; the absence of composition premised on a frame. Matsuda’s paintings are the traces of a moment in which subject and world are newly separated and newly generated—each and every time. One may feel intimidated by the talk of phenomenological reduction or Zen enlightenment, but expressed differently it is a familiar phrase in dance, music, and sport: the best performance—movement, playing, competition—happens when one becomes “empty,” when the self is momentarily gone. Needless to say, no one can become empty by willing it (“I have become empty” is itself a form of consciousness). One only realizes, after an exceptional performance, that one was empty.

That Matsuda’s painting is a kind of visualize d performance (dance, gesture) is evident in the fact that most of his works have no fixed orientation, and in the near-equivalence of his painting and his ceramics. What he presents is a replay—a regeneration—of the world before the separation of self and object, unconcerned with the medium of expression. A work devoted solely to manifesting “what must be painted” is forthright and pure. And the place prior to subject is an airy world that brims with light.

Minoru Shimizu, Art Critic

Venue
3-5-7 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan 150-0001

Artists
Keisuke Matsuda

Exhibition Dates
13 February, 2025 – 28 February, 2026

Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PM

Website
https://lighthouse-kanata.com/en/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/lighthouse_kanata/

Contact
info@lighthouse-kanata.com

About the Artist and Work

KEISUKE MATSUDA

“I try to paint a world that transcends the objective and the subjective. This world consciously changes, and by moving the body and the image in my mind’s eye, the world begins to express the real world itself.”

One of Kanata’s newest young artists in painting, Keisuke Matsuda (1984– ) of Kyoto channels energies that abound in mysticism and spirituality to create seemingly minimal abstractions that brim with a self-assured confidence that is beyond his years. Having received his MFA at the Kyoto City University of Arts, the artist has lived a relatively quiet, almost hermit-like existence in the south of Kyoto where his studio is located. Yet in recent years this up-and-coming painter has garnered a core following from collectors attracted to the sort of primitive, almost primordial paintings that are borne from the artist’s deep conversations with his materials and with his constant conversations with the world before him.

The artist, in fact, claims that his works are figurative, and are attempts to grasp the tangible world around him by capturing and painting the world of “things” through imagery that are essentially “intangible”.  After long and tumultuous conversations within himself, the artist would viscerally paint the world of the tangible in minimal, simplistic brushstrokes that capture a mood, a time, a place in the mind of the artist.

In the words of the artist, “When I am completely focused in the studio, the world and myself begin to compress. Then, at a certain instant, they fold together and myself becomes the world. In the next moment, the world peels away again, leaving an imprint adhered inside me. That trace is volatile—it fades quickly—so before it disappears, I hurry to retrace it. That becomes the work. The experience of ‘self = world,’ prior to the division of subject and object, is the reason I continue to paint.”

(Text and images courtesy of A Lighthouse called Kanata and Keisuke Matsuda)