Japanese-born painter Tomoya Matsuzaki draws inspiration from food, foraging and the cultural differences he has experienced between his native country and the UK, where he has lived for the past two decades. Matsuzaki’s interest in foraging arises from a desire to better understand and connect with the places he lives:

‘I often go foraging to harvest edible plants … and the activity makes me observe not only the textures, colours and shapes of our surroundings but also the condition of places, such as seasons, weather, temperature and light. The weather conditions affect the timing for fruiting mushrooms, the sea tides have an association to the moon phases, the smell of rain comes from bacteria and viruses in soil, so called petrichor, and the natural sunlight makes vitamin D which affects our moods.’

A petrichor is the smell that emanates after rain has fallen on very dry soil. For Matsuzaki, landscapes are a manifestation of our collective emotions and psyche; the earthy scent of a petrichor is often associated with a calm nostalgia or melancholy.

Paintings evoke, rather than depict, the landscape; soft-edged marks drift and overlap, calling to mind the blurriness of misty hills or a rainy seascape. Works are painted in subdued tones onto both sides of irregularly-shaped jesmonite, with holes allowing us to see from one side to the other. Hung at different heights from wooden struts, the works appear to float amongst one another, demonstrating Matsuzaki’s approach to the painting as more than a pictorial plane, and instead as an object that extends into three dimensions.

In Petrichor Grey, Matsuzaki sees the cold, grey landscapes of the UK through the lens of a curious traveller, and although he considers himself an outsider in both countries, finds sanctuary and belonging in the common elements of their climates and ecologies. Foraging and painting become a form of research that in turn allow Matsuzaki to develop his own personal landscape, shaped by an exchange between two cultures and two lands.

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