Biography

Combining photography and extreme digital image editing, Hiroyuki Masuyama works directly with multiple photographs—sometimes numbering in the hundreds, even thousands—to form a composite final image, mirroring a painter's method of working from multiple sketches. Through this process he reproduces works of landscape art from the past. These images are presented on large-scale light boxes to emphasise their distance from the original in terms of time and medium, while maintaining continuity in terms of content. In the Sharjah Biennial 9, Masuyama exhibited a series of led light boxes titled The Lost Works of Caspar David Friedrich (2007-2008).

Matsuyama's solo exhibitions have been held at Galerie Rothamel, Frankfurt (2021); Messner Mountain Museum, Bolzano, Italy (2020); Studio la Città, Verona (2019); Städtische Galerie Offenburg, Germany (2019); Kunstmuseum Heidenheim, Germany (2018); Lyonel Feininger Galerie, Quedinburg, Germany (2016); Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg (2011); Mikkeli Art Museum, Finland (2010); Studio la Città (2010); and Louis Vuitton Cultural Space, Hong Kong, (2010), among others. His work has also been shown in group exhibitions at Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Germany (2020, 2009); Kunsthaus Zürich (2019); BredaPhoto international photo festival, the Netherlands (2018); MOCAK Museum of contemporary Art in Krakow (2017); Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut (2015); Hans Peter Zimmer Stiftung Düsseldorf, Germany (2011); Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria (2010); and Inter Alia Art Company, Seoul (2008), among others.

Masuyama attended the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music from 1987–1993 where he specialised in oil and mural painting. He received a DAAD scholarship for the Academy of the Arts in Düsseldorf (1995–1999) and subsequently studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne until 2001.

He was born in 1968 in Tsukuba City, Japan and currently lives and works in Düsseldorf.

SAF participation:
Sharjah Biennial 9 (2009)

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