S uggesting at hidden emotions within the landscape of the imagination, Nice Quiet Hot Tears (2018) is a monumental masterwork from Tomokazu Matsuyama’s signature equestrian series. The artist, known for reappropriating traditional Japanese icons, street art motifs, and American pop culture imagery in his paintings, intends to trigger conversations about selfhood and diversity in the contemporary context of globalisation. As the artist has articulated, “I want to portray the culture that we live in and to do that, for me, is to make a mashup of what makes our t.mes very unique,” (The artist, quoted in Keith Estiler, “How Tomokazu Matsuyama Appropriates Images to Create Replica Handbags ”, Hypebeast, 1 February 2019, online). Creating a composite visual language that is entirely unique, Matsuyama’s polychromatic work seamlessly blends stylistic influences from the Kano School, the dominant painting mode in Japan through the 15th and 18th centuries, with the styles of painting associated with the Abstract Expressionists.

Appearing as a recurring motif in Matsuyama’s oeuvre, a poised figures is depicted on horse-back, galloping through a forest alongside variegated creatures in a fantastical wonderland. The canvas is comprised of both vivid colours and neutral colours; each shape is composed of a myriad of pop art-esque patterns and colours that together form a coalescent discordance, while the depiction of the landscape and the flecks of snow are rendered in traditional Japanese style. Historically, the equestrian image served as a representation of power and conquest and was often placed in a propagandistic context. However, Matsuyama successfully assigns a transient and cross-cultural identity to his new image that is free from cultural, historical, and geographical constraints by amalgamating a dichotomy of Eastern and Western cultures to form one cohesive image. For this series, the artist carefully appropriates images from works by old masters; from the East, he references images of samurai on horseback, seen in paintings by Katsushika Hokusai and in the portrait of Sanada Yukimura by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi; from the West, he references paintings of leaders such as the portrait of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, as well as depictions of settlers battling Native Americans in the Old West painted by Frederic Remington. By reframing traditional figures through the lens of contemporary art, the artist attempts to liberate these traditional images from their historical, and often propagandistic, context.

Set against a hypnotic purple sky and a surreal overgrowth of vegetation, the electric green horse with emblazoned eyes and it’s confident rider travel between two worlds, existing in the intoxicating liminal space between the imagined and the real. Applying the visual typography of digitalised media to traditional artistic troupes, Matsuyama’s Nice Quiet Hot Tears is an enigmatic work imbued with a strong sense of narrative and is truly global in scope and perspective.

在 一片天馬行空的夢幻景象中，《寂靜的熱淚》（2018年作）卻似意有所指般指向一些沒有被畫出的情感，畫作出自松山智和的經典「騎士」系列，屬於當中的代表佳作。松山智和以挪用日本傳統象徵、街頭藝術圖案和美國流行文化符號為創作特色，其目的是在當代的全球化背景下引發討論，反思自我觀和多元差異，正如松山智和解釋：「我想呈現我們置身其中的文化，若然要這樣做，我認為我們要提取所有讓這個時代如此獨特的元素，然後全部混合起來」（引述松山智和，錄於基夫．艾斯提勒，〈松山智和如何挪用圖像來創造藝術〉，《Hypebeast》雜誌，2019年2月1日，網上）。 松山智和的作品五光十色，繽紛多彩，創造出一種完全與別不同、合成不同元素的視覺語言，將狩野派（日本15至18世紀最大畫派）的風格影響與來自抽象表現主義的相關手法融合得天衣無縫。

畫中神態自若的騎士是在松山智和作品中反復出現的形象，騎士在馬背上策騎疾馳，穿越生機盎然的森林，四周的萬物欣欣向榮，讓騎士置身如詩如畫的夢幻世界中。整幅畫同時由亮色系和中性色組成；每片形狀都是由數之不盡的波普風花紋和色彩組成，這些花紋和色彩合起來形成一種花樣繁多的聚合體，而風景場面和雪花飛絮則以傳統的日本風格呈現。在歷史上，騎馬的畫是權力和征服的象徵，經常被放到政治宣傳中使用。然而，松山智和將光譜兩極的東西方文化融合起來，並創造連貫統一的畫象，成功將一種短暫存留於畫中、不受文化歷史地理限制的跨文化身份融會到新創作的圖像上。在這個系列中，松山智和嚴選歷代大師作品，挪用東西方文化的圖像。東方藝術方面，他從葛飾北齋的經典畫作和月岡芳年的真田幸村肖像中擷取騎馬武士的形象；西方藝術方面，他借鑑雅克・路易・大衛的拿破崙肖像等政治人物畫作，又參考弗雷德里克．雷明頓描繪西部居民在與美洲原住民衝突的舊西部畫作。在當代藝術的透視鏡下，松山智和試圖重構這些傳統歷史人物，藉此將他們從甚具政治宣傳色彩的歷史背景中解放出來。

在這片魅力懾人的紫色天空和草木茂盛的超現實風景下，這匹載上眼罩的綠色電動馬引領神態堅定的騎士穿梭於兩個世界之間，在想像與現實間的魔幻交界中馳騁。松山智和的《寂靜的熱淚》散發神秘莫測的氣息，更充滿強烈敘事感，畫作將數碼化媒體中的印刷設計應用到傳統的畫室團隊創作中，無論在眼光還是格局上都體現出真正的國際視野。