EXHIBITED:
Hiroyuki Matsuura Solo Exhibition, Eslite Gallery, Taipei, 7 - 29 April, 2007

ILLUSTRATED:
Ultra New Visions, Eslite Galler, Taipei, 2007, color illustrated, pp. 22-23

PROVENANCE:
Eslite Gallery, Taipei Acquired by the present owner from the above Private Collection, Asia
This painting is to be sold with a certificate of authenticitiys sued by Eslite Gallery, Taipei.

One of the greatest human cultural accomplishment of the last century was the immersion of our lives in a digitalized environment. Many household gadgets commonly found in the contemporary world is dependent upon electronic gauges and digital systems. In this regard, the works of Hiroyuki Matsuura predicates upon the aforementioned sentiment and acknowledges a world that is increasingly becoming digitalized. In retrospect, the artist started as a graphic designer specializing on advertising, packaging, binding and logo design.

The year 1999 is significant and marked the beginning of his journey in producing posters, package and skateboard design on the theme of Character Illustration. A series of solo exhibition since 2005 further facilitated advancement in his career as an artist. In essence, the artist's work predicates upon notions of the prevalence of the digital culture and how it extends to our everyday lives, he strives to amplify the potential in these images as he believes that their existence within the monitor frame is no different from the views outside our window frames.

"Number of Forest", the central blonde character dressed in a hooded forest green ensemble seem to speak directly to its audience. The various tones of green utilized on the canvas delicately extenuate the acrylic sheen of the cyan icy-blue pupils of the figure that conveys a sense of innocence through its direct gaze and an ensemble that may possibly be perceived as reminiscence of the little red riding hood's. While the chubby white bird seating in the warm embrace of its nest constitute a humorous component that compliments the expression and demeanor of the central character, who is not shown in its entirety creating a contextual narrative that extends beyond the confines of the canvas. In this regard, the highly decorative and flavorful works of Matsuura Hiroyuki can be considered as a part of neo-Japanism, where the dazzling vibrant colorings and clean lines bordering smooth and saturated colors are sharp and stylish adding life to the subject matter through a combined style of graphic arts and comics. At the same time this attribute greatly appeals and fuels our imagination through a fusion of our own nostalgic memories and subjective senses. This quality is particularly applicable to the present generations, who are accustomed to constantly be surrounded by an abundance of options and have the luxury of cherry-picking things that appeal to the taste of the particular individual.

The emotions expressed in Matsuura's animamic images alludes to his aim of establishing a symbolic representations of both his daily realities and the virtual realities in the digital world, as the characters depicted on his canvases are actual personalities of those whom he had acquaintance on a personal level, allowing its audiences to relate and connect with the characters in his works with great ease. Hence, the characters are not merely figments of his own imagination, but soulful depiction derived from real people. His approach is therefore very different from the Pop Art of the 1960s; his paintings are not only part of the animamic trend, but works of art that transpires into the realms of cartoons, animation, comics and contemporary art. This ideology allude
to the artist's believes that these characters in the digital age are starting to have lives equivalent of ours, with "acrylic skin on the celluloid boards" and a soul of its own, their existence transcends the boundaries between an adult and a child, or men and women. These characters will indefinitely evolve together with the digital society and becomes a part of the global culture.

Matsuura works presents a juxtaposition between real existence and virtual situations, the colorful bright colors of digital imaging of the new century driven by animamic aesthetics constructs endlessly changing visual forms that nurtures the present taste, while simultaneously connotative of the sentiment that the digital world can be fully incorporated into our lives in this era of global digitalization. These dazzling visual effects bear metaphorical and humorous content that are ubiquitous in Asian popular culture today.