White Cube is to present Darkness Against Nature, a solo exhibition by Japanese artist Yoko Matsumoto.
Featuring paintings and works on paper created from the 1980s to the present day, the exhibition marks the artist’s return to New York after almost three decades. Born in 1936 in Tokyo, Matsumoto continues to live and work in the city of her birth. After graduating in oil painting from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1960, she first visited New York in 1967, where she became profoundly influenced by the second generation of American abstract expressionists such as Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler. It was there that she discovered materials unavailable in Japan, namely acrylic paint (Liquitex), a gloss-polymer medium and raw cotton canvas, which she there after adopted into her practice.
Lineages inform Matsumoto’s expressive and disciplined abstraction of Japanese art, in particular the monochromatic ink techniques of suiboku-ga. Throughout her extensive body of work, the artist addresses color in a processual and meditative manner, distinguishing material constitution, tonal mutability and dimensionality through a rigorous use of light, shade and hue. Highlights from the exhibition include the artist’s signature, labor-intensive “pink” acrylic works. Painted on the floor during periods of deep concentration, Matsumoto began this series in the late 1970s and continued to develop it for three decades.“Unlike black and white,” the artist expressed, “pink bears no concept; instead it exists, unreachable, in the innermost depths of our subconscious.”Due to the physical demands of the acrylic works, Matsumoto returned to oil paint in the early2000s. Upon seeing Cézanne’sThe Great Pine(1889) during a trip to Philadelphia, the artist was inspired by his perception of nature, leading the development of a palette centered around verdant greens in her more recent paintings and watercolors included in the exhibition.
Yoko Matsumoto, Darkness Against Nature, June 28th–August 23rd, 2024 White Cube New York
About the artist
Yoko Matsumoto (b.1936) lives and works in Tokyo. She studied oil painting at theTokyo University of the Arts, graduating in 1960. Matsumoto has exhibitedextensively,includingsolo exhibitionsatWhite Cube Mason’s Yard, London (2024);Hino Gallery,Tokyo (2023, 2019 and 2017);and Nihonbashi Takashimaya Art Gallery X, Tokyo(2021), as well as group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2023);The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan (2023); Phillips,Tokyo (2023); TheNational Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2022); The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama,Japan (2022); Ginza Yokyo Hall, Tokyo; The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura Annex,Kanagawa, Japan (2020); and Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan (2020). Herwork is held in public collections, includingHe Art Museum, Foshan, China;The NationalMuseum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; The NationalMuseum of Art, Osaka, Japan; the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, Japan;and Fukuyama Museum of Art, Hiroshima, Japan. Since 2005, Matsumoto has beenrepresented by Hino Gallery, Tokyo
