松岡勇樹 Yuki Matsuoka

Born in 1994 in Kameoka City, Kyoto Prefecture. Based in Kyoto. 2018 Mitsubishi Corporation Art Gate Program Scholarship recipient. In 2020, he completed the Master’s Program in Japanese Painting, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts. He explores revisiting and creating paintings born under the Japanese cultural climate. During the coronavirus pandemic, he experienced a traffic accident, surgery on his dominant arm due to illness, and the death of his grandmother. From the clouds he saw forming and disappearing while he was hospitalized, and becoming aware of the pigs consumed for medical purposes, he created paintings titled “no beginning and no end” using ink on pig rawhide and Japanese paper.

Academic Background
2018 Graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Japanese Painting
2020 Completed Master’s Course in Japanese Painting, Kyoto City University of Arts Graduate School of Fine Arts

Exhibits
2017 Kyoto Kachokan Award 2017 Exhibition, Kyoto Kachokan (Kyoto), Excellence Award
2018 8th Maeda Seison Memorial Grand Prize Exhibition, Higashi Mino Fureai Center (Gifu)
Paintings that open up tomorrow – 37th Ueno Royal Museum Grand Prize Exhibition, Ueno Royal Museum (Tokyo)
2019 Mitsubishi Corporation Art Gate Program 2018 Scholarship Exhibition
Mitsubishi Corporation Building B1 Wind Display (Tokyo)
Mitsubishi Corporation Building MCFOREST (Tokyo)
Shinmaru Building 3rd floor atrium (Tokyo)
8th Go Sakura Art Museum Ohka Award Exhibition, Go Sakura Art Museum (Tokyo)
2020 Kyoto City University of Arts Exhibition 2019 (Kyoto), Alumni Association Award
2023 New Exhibition of Japanese Painting 2023, Museum “Eki” KYOTO (Kyoto), Encouragement Award/Kyoto City Mayor Award
Kameoka Fog Art Festival Castle Ruins Art Exhibition 2023, Tamba Kameyama Castle Ruins Okibe (Kyoto)

Solo Exhibitions
2023 Solo exhibition “No beginning or end” Art Gallery Kitano (Kyoto)

Group Exhibitions
2022 NCS.OKAYAMA Charity Exhibition, GALLERY108 (Okayama)
2023 28th “SEN” invited artist, Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art (Kyoto)

Auctions
2017 1st Kyoto Student Art Auction Kyoto Art Center (Kyoto)
2018 2nd Kyoto Student Art Auction Nijo Castle Ninomaru Palace Kitchen (Kyoto)
2019 Mitsubishi Corporation Art Gate Program 42nd Charity Auction, Tokyo Marunouchi Park Building (Tokyo)
44th Charity Auction, Tokyo Marunouchi Park Building (Tokyo)
46th Charity Auction, online (Tokyo)
4th Kyoto Student Art Auction, Kyoto Art Center (Kyoto)

Drawing for me, is an act of the self acquiring the world.
I thought I had “ended” as an artist, not being able to paint anymore due to an accident and illness.
One day, I was made to realize there was “no beginning and no end” to the changes in the clouds I saw from my hospital room, and began dotting with my left hand on paper from a one-coin store.
The dots gradually formed a mass and began to expand, acquiring shapes that reflected the flow and energy of the atmosphere.
And when I realized the death of the pigs that were consumed for medical purposes, I became something inseparable from pigs, and decided to paint my “beginning” here.
The paintings created from the countless ink dots and living traces of the pig’s skin, vividly reveal the artist’s “life” and the “death” he supposedly should want to keep away from.
This is how I was able to meet the beginning of “my paintings”.

With an origin in Japanese painting, he recently made a leap forward by discovering the roots of his own paintings. What appeared from the artist’s pain of temporarily not being able to hold a brush due to an accident, is like a suffering struggling god, and also like a current of air reaching into the heights. Is it even possible to create the intangible sky, atmosphere or clouds from a new place without falling into the conventional depiction? These gratifying works are of innocent repetition and questioning.

（Miwa Yanagi）