Tomokazu Matsuyama was born in 1976.  Matsuyama's work responds to his own bi-cultural experience of growing up between Japan and America by bringing together aspects of both Eastern and Western aesthetic systems.

One of Matsuyama's signature Horse rider series originated in a painting by court painter Kano Sanraku, Dog Chasing , from the first decades of the Edo period. Sanraku was adopted into the famed Kano School family after working for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the unifier of Japan, and soon became leader of the movement.

Matsuyama gave the work a unique spin by taking the riders from the original scene, and painted them in layers of hyper-colored stripes, splatters and drips, giving a nod to American ac...