Installation view, Cosmic Sound: Master Paintings by Ken Matsubara, Ippodo Gallery

Cosmic Sound: Master Paintings by Ken Matsubara
Closing Thursday, April 4, 2024

There’s still time to experience Cosmic Sound: Master Paintings by Ken Matsubara at Ippodo Gallery before it closes this Thursday, the 4th.  This exhibition is a culmination of the artist’s concepts featuring twenty of the beloved painter’s unique artworks and showcasing series spanning his long and illustrious career, including three works depicting the auspicious and fearsome dragon zodiac, the spectacular 12-panel Kūkai’s View and versions of Scenery and the Moon Sound.

Ken Matsubara (b. 1948) came to the medium of painting as a young man living amongst monks at a Buddhist temple in north-central Japan. Now residing in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, a natural landscape of rivers and waterfalls, Matsubara sojourned across the Japanese archipelago, finding inspiration through researching local imaginations of the dragon—sometimes a sky god or spirit of the water. The transcendental themes of his youth continue to permeate his works. One universal symbol is the circle, symbolizing the resonant sound of a ringing prayer bowl. The repetitive shape muddies the separation between sun or moon, sky or sea, or foreground from background: all is one and one is all.

For this exhibition, Matsubara chose 明 “mei” as the underlying theme. The Chinese character is composed of two radicals: “day” and “moon,” representing brightness, clearness, and intelligence. Just as tomorrow will surely dawn, even after a pitch-dark night, there is hope that in the darkness of today’s world, people will mature, become wise, and illuminate the way ahead for those that come next.

To learn more and watch Ken Matsubara’s Artist Talk, click here.