Year: 2019
Medium: acrylic, mixed media on canvas
Dimensions: 90.6 x 90.6 cm (35 3/4 x 35 3/4 in.) / diagonal: 128.5 x 128.5 cm (50 5/8 x 50 5/8 in.)
Acquired from Sotheby’s, 2022
Horsemen are the most popular motif to appear in Matsuyama’s paintings. When one thinks of equestrian paintings, works such as French neoclassical artist David’s “Bonaparte, First Consul, Crossing the Saint-Bernard” come to mind. Needless to say, masculine and exaggeratedly heroic works of that nature were painted to display the power of the rider. Similarly, equestrian images have historically been created to glorify the ruling classes. Matsuyama’s work, on the other hand, could be described as running contrary to that kind of authoritarian expression. Characterized by bright, gentle colors, stylized, flattened, and distorted limbs of the horse, and the gentle expression of the rider, there is no cavalryman on the way to overpower anything by force. Matsuyama is based in New York, the most diverse city in a multi-ethnic society, and has faced and overcome many difficulties as an Asian, still treated as a minority. For him, surrendering to power is out of the question, let alone exalting it. He deliberately takes the equestrian image as a motif, intending to dismantle this symbol of authority.
