Rui Matsunaga’s influences are wide-ranging but are grounded in folklore and story-telling. Her intricate, small-scale paintings, painted in oils on plywood, are populated with a seemingly bizarre cast of characters, frogs, rabbits, foxes and mythical creatures. There are references to early Renaissance painting and print-making, Japanese scroll paintings (emakimono), especially the Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga from the 12th century and the manga films of Hayao Miyazaki, film culture more generally and cybernetics.
“I paint figures to capture a glimpse of an archetypal space so that we can contemplate our multi-dimensional and shifting realities. I believe that humans contain a deep space within where pathways open to something cosmic and beyond human.”