Rui Matsunaga Artist's Statement I am interested exaggerating the tension between reality and fiction in the everyday, where the fairy-tale seeps through, guiding and revealing a dimension fused with the magical and spiritual. Books and films of fantasy, Science Fiction, mythologies and Japanese comics (Manga) inform my paintings and merge around the figures I paint. Everyday images collected from magazines, newspapers and photographs I have taken are used as starting points and are morphed into something otherworldly. Through the slow process of painting, I become far more involved with the images, nurturing the ordinary figures into revealing the entities existing in a magical or spiritual world. Images of work Brief CV EDUCATION 1999-2002 Royal Academy of Arts Schools, London - MA Fine Art Painting 1996-1999 Central Saint Martins, London - BA(Hons) Fine Art Painting SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2006 10th Planet, Unit A04 Tower Bridge Business Complex, Bermondsey, UK IÍll be your mirror, Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool (UK tour) Jerusalem, Dean Clough, Halifax Heathen Threshold, Sartorial Contemporary, London Outdoors, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London 2005 We have Left the City Gates, Nunnery Gallery, London New London Kicks, Wooster Projects, New York RAdical, Jerwood Space. London NLK (In association with Armory Show), SohoHouse, New York 2004 Zoo Art Fair, Flaca Gallery, London Le Petit Paysage, Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool 2003 trans-, Kyoto Art Centre, Japan -portal, Studio J, Osaka, Japan 2002 Post-Otaku, Michael Goedhuis Gallery, London Blood Auction, Contemporary Art Society, London AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS & RESIDENCIES 2003 Lexmark European Painting Prize Finalist, Eyestorm Gallery, London Kyoto Arts Centre Residency, Japan 2002 Royal Academy School of Art Fellow 02/03, London May Cristea Award for Painting 2001 Landseer Award for Painting 1998 Arte Viva Residency, Senagallia, Italy Cohn and Wolfe Awards 98 Finalist, Lethaby Gallery, London Contact Email: rui.matsunaga@tiscali.co.uk All content © the artists and EASTonline