Ken Matsubara

Featured throughout the world from the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum to Paris and Cologne, Matsubara’s paintings are serene, drifting, yet contained and dynamic. From intense brush strokes to delicate texture, each painting represents a return to nature, an appreciation and consideration of the earth and natural elements.

Treasuring communication with nature and our roots, Matsubara travels around the mountains and plains of the Nasu District gathering inspiration and materials of colored earth and sand to produce his paintings. His paintings reflect Matsubara’s own appreciation of nature as each piece, with ink waterfalls and silver moonlight, reflect the breathtaking anomalies of nature that we sometimes forget. 

1948 Born in Kamiimachi, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

1973 “The Dokuritsu Exhibition” at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Tokyo

1977 Won the Dai-ichi Bijyutsu Award at the Dai-ichi Bijyutsu Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Tokyo

1990 “Exhibition for Leading Artists of the Next Generation” at Hakone Open-Air Museum

2001 “Tochigi Prefecture 20th Century Art” at Tochigi Museum of Fine Arts

2006 “Exhibition of Ken Matsubara” toured in Paris and Cologne

2008 “Seisei Ruten (Metempsychosis) exhibition” at Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Toyama 

Prefecture (Other numerous solo and group exhibitions. )

2019 Kūkai: Sun and Moon Ippodo Gallery