As an artist, designer, and architect, Ryota Matsumoto is internationally recognized as the forefather of the postdigital art movement. Matsumoto has previously collaborated with a cofounder of the Metabolist Movement, Kisho Kurokawa, and with Arata Isozaki, Peter Christopherson, and MIT Media Lab.
He has served as the MFA lecturer at Transart Institute, University of Plymouth, and is a research associate at the New Centre of Research & Practice. He has been active as a guest critic on design ... view more »
Artist Style: Visual: Abstract, Conceptual, Environmental
Artist Medium: Visual Arts: Mixed Media
Matsumoto’s work reflects the morphological transformations of our ever-evolving urban and ecological milieus, which could be attributed to a multitude of spatio-temporal phenomena influenced by social, economic and cultural assemblages. They are created as visual commentaries on speculative changes in notions of societies, cultures and ecosystems in the transient nature of constantly shifting topography and geology.
There is a common thread with regard to visual abstraction in his artworks: the multiplicity of hybrid objects that unfold within their own spatiotemporal coordinates of phase space and are transcribed to an image plane. In that regard, his creative process of drawing henceforth can be defined as the swirls of virtual intensities that are reconfigured as the cartography of spatiotemporal reality.
The artwork explores the digital collage technique combining the algorithmic matrices of transition probabilities and photogrammetry.
Furthermore, the varying scale, the juxtaposition of biomorphic forms, intertwined textures, oblique projections, and visual metamorphoses are employed as the multi-layered drawing methodologies to question and investigate the ubiquitous nature of urban meta-morphology, emerging realities of control society, and their visual representation in the context of non-Euclidean configuration. The application of these techniques allows the work to transcend the boundaries between analog and digital media as well as between two- and multi-dimensional domains.
Matsumoto’s process-oriented compositional techniques imbue the work with what we see as the very essence of our socio-cultural environments beyond the conventional protocols of architectural and artistic formalities.
His creative approach conjures up the synthetic possibilities of spatial semiotics that emerge as the potential products of alchemical procedures.
Born in Tokyo, he was raised in Hong Kong and Japan. He received a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007 after his studies at the Architectural Association in London and Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art in the early 90’s. Over the years, he has studied with Manuel DeLanda, Vincent Joseph Scully Jr., Cecil Balmond, and Giancarlo De Carlo, among others.
Matsumoto is the recipient of Visual Art Open International Artist Award, Florence Biennale Mixed Media 2nd Place Award, The International Society of Experimental Artists Best of Show Gracie Award, Premio Ora Prize Italy 5th Edition, Premio Ora Prize Spain 1st Edition, Donkey Art Prize III Edition Finalist, Best of Show IGOA Toronto, Art Kudos Best of Show Award, FILE (Electronic Language International Festival) Media Art Finalist, Lynx International Prize Be Art Builder Award, Lumen Prize Finalist, and Western Bureau Art Prize Honorable Mention.
He was awarded the Gold Artist Prize from ArtAscent Journal, the 1st Place Prize from Exhibeo Art Magazine, and the Award of Excellence from the Creative Quarterly Journal of Art and Design in 2015 and 2016. His work is part of the permanent collection of University of Texas at Tyler.
