Ken Matsubara

Ken Matsubara is a Japanese artist who primarily works with video art. Using photographs, moving image, objects and collage, Matsubara’s work addresses memories and histories to which we can all relate, regardless of our backgrounds, status or age. The artist sees human consciousness as recollections of the same ancient knowledge that transcends the individual, passed down through generations and across peoples, at a microcosmic level.

Matsubara’s work explores the fluctuating manner of memories that reside deep within our consciousness. By working with media such as photography and video, he visually draws upon the reflective property of images to explore the nature of memory. His understated and meditative works reflect on time and the transience of being, as well as the invisible forces and collective memory invested in objects.

Ken Matsubara (b. 1949 in Tokyo, Japan, lives and works in Tokyo) has held solo exhibitions and participated in museum shows in Japan and internationally since the 1980s. His works are in major collections in Europe, the US, and Asia. Matsubara graduated from the Musashino Art University in Tokyo (1973).

Matsubara’s first solo exhibition in Finland is set to open at Helsinki Contemporary in October 2026.

His works are currently on view in EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition In Search of the Present: On Rootlessness, on view until February 2027.