Ken Matsubara is a Japanese artist who primarily works with video art. Using moving image, photographs and collage, Matsubara’s work addresses memories and histories to which we can all relate, regardless of our backgrounds, status or age. He sees human consciousness as recollections of the same ancient knowledge that transcends the individual, passed down through generations and across peoples.
Matsubara’s first solo exhibition in Finland titled Moon, no thought of reflection. Water, no thought of reflecting. will be on view at Helsinki Contemporary during October 2–25.
Ken Matsubara’s work explores the fluctuating manner of memories that reside deep within consciousness.
His installations often feature everyday materials such as water, glass and paper, which he combines with projections and antique objects. The understated works bring forth the invisible forces and history invested in objects and material culture.
Matsubara's meditative works also reflect on the transience of being.
More specifically in relation to his works, Matsubara believes the Japanese sense of beauty is largely based on the appreciation of mono-no-aware, or "sadness of the passing of time". This notion should not be regarded as a negative attitude towards the finitude, but rather to embrace its perishability.
Matsubara’s works are currently included in EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition In Search of the Present: On Rootlessness, on view until February 2027.
A duo presentation by Ken Matsubara and Roland Persson will be on view at CHART art fair in Copenhagen during August 27–30. Both artists, in their own right and using different media, work with themes of individual and collective memory.
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. Matsubara graduated from the Musashino Art University in Tokyo in 1973.
His works are in major private and public collections in Europe, the US, and Asia, such as those of Deutsche Bank, Bulgari, Goldmann Sachs, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Christen Sveaas Kunststiftelse and UC Irvine Langson, Orange County Museum of Art.