Year: 2022
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 182 x 227 cm (71 5/8 x 89 3/8 in.)
Acquired from ANOMALY, 2022
When one thinks of Erina Matsui, her giant self-portraits or depictions of axolotls come to mind. In the absence of a very intimate relationship, opportunities to observe a person’s face from a close-up are rare. Matsui’s works are not simple portraits—they involve stepping over the boundary between the self and others in a way that goes beyond the strictly necessary, bringing the self and others into close proximity. The faces in her self-portraits are sometimes described as strange, but that is because of such “proximity.” Excessive proximity makes it impossible to see something in its entirety, instead magnifying the closest area. To capture this on canvas in a painterly manner, there is no choice but to distort the face's proportions, as if it were reflected in a convex mirror, leading at times to unusual appearances. However, making people laugh is not the objective here. There seems to be some connection in Matsui’s paintings, with their excessive closeness, to the fact that painting is communication for an artist. This is a rare example of Matsui’s work in that it does not focus on a single individual, instead closely resembling the kind of spatial depiction found in Renaissance or mannerist religious paintings. On the ground is a landscape akin to an amusement park, together with numerous theatrically posed figures in old-fashioned garb, and a lofty mountain range with jagged peaks traverses the center of the picture plane. At the top of the painting, one finds figures with the appearance of philosophers in the discussion, in the center of whom is a joyous infant with a kind of halo, with both arms held outstretched. A large face protrudes from further in the background, turning to face Matsui’s self-portrait, which occupies a significant portion of the left side of the canvas. The figures painted within Matsui’s cheeks all have a calm demeanor, and exude a warm atmosphere. They appear to be trying to emerge from Matsui’s mouth, which is slightly opened. Botticelli’s “Primavera” depicts flowers sprouting from the mouth of Chloris (a goddess of the earth), at the very moment that she is about to transform into Flora (goddess of flowers). Perhaps this work portrays a moment in which desires and thoughts, which cannot be expressed in words, overflow from Matsui’s mouth as she thinks of the child.
