ARTIST STATEMENT
Since childhood, I have carried a simple question within me: “What is this world?”
For many years, as a filmmaker, I pursued the craft of depicting the world with precision. In my photography, however, I seek the opposite. I am drawn to the moments where the world’s fixed outlines dissolve, revealing a different form from within.
The camera is not a special device, but an extension of my eye—one that allows me to maintain a natural distance from the world. Through subtle shifts in movement, I capture fragments of reality that are often overlooked.
The photographs born from this process do not depict extraordinary events or places. What remains are the ineffable presences and fluctuations of memory hidden in the everyday. They are fragments of daily life that everyone has seen, yet through the depth of looking—through the direction of consciousness—they reveal entirely different aspects.
The world does not merely exist; it arises through “how we see it.”
BIOGRAPHY
Mitsugu Matsumoto (b. 1982) is a filmmaker and photographer based in Tokyo, Japan.
Over the course of nearly two decades as a filmmaker, he has honed his craft in creating precise and narrative-driven visual expressions, primarily in the field of advertising.
In contrast to the precision demanded in commercial production, in recent years he has devoted himself to fine art photography as a medium for freer and more philosophical inquiry. His photographic practice is driven by a lifelong question: “What is this world?”
Matsumoto captures unseen forms and subtle fluctuations hidden within familiar, everyday scenes. Through his distinct visual language, he dissolves the fixed outlines of reality, revealing within a single photograph the fluidity and energy inherent in the world. His work is not a record of what the world looks like, but the very question of “how we see it.”
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