Tomokazu Matsuyama: Morning Sun
On view June 20 - October 5, 2025
Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center is pleased to present Tomokazu Matsuyama: Morning Sun, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by the contemporary Japanese American artist Tomokazu Matsuyama (Matsu). Inspired by Edward Hopper’s iconic 1952 painting Morning Sun (Columbus Museum of Art), the exhibition delves into the complexities of solitude and life in a globalized, consumer-driven world—recurring themes in Matsu’s work. To engage with Hopper’s themes, Matsu researched and intricately wove together diverse visual references to reflect his cross-cultural background and observations of contemporary society. The exhibition will be on view from June 20 through October 5, 2025 with a reception on the opening day at 6:30pm.
The exhibition centers around Matsu’s new large-scale painting Morning Sun Dance. Of the work that inspired his painting, Matsu says, “While Hopper’s Morning Sun captures a moment of introspective stillness within the psychological landscape of mid-century urban life, his treatment of solitude, light, and constructed space continues to influence my own approach to thinking about isolation as well as my approach to painting.”
In Morning Sun, Hopper depicts a woman sitting on her bed in the sun, alone in an empty room, wearing a plain orange dress and a simple, contemplative expression. In Morning Sun Dance, Matsu paints a solitary woman with a similarly meditative expression. However, Matsu populates her space with more personal artifacts than Hopper did: dogs, magazines, and a seemingly expensive couch. Her clothes are a mixture of Western and Japanese designs, a William Morris textile combined with a traditional Japanese pattern. She has a Sports Illustrated poster of Muhammad Ali on the wall, indicating her affinity with what he represents: modernity and diversity. Notably, Matsu also positions his figure looking away from the window toward her full room, while Hopper’s is staring out into the city, suggesting commercialism as a coping mechanism and reflecting the changing nature of solitude in contemporary 2025 society.
The exhibition will also feature Matsu’s process drawings, which reveal how the artist engaged with Hopper’s use of light, figuration, and abstraction. Two additional smaller paintings by Matsu also reinterpret Hopper’s iconic figure in the orange dress—one from Hopper’s original perspective, and the other from an external vantage point, as if observing the figure from the outside.
“This exhibition offers a fascinating dialogue between two artists from different eras, both grappling with the complexities of modern life and the experience of solitude,” says Kathleen Motes Bennewitz, Executive Director of the Edward Hopper House Museum. “Matsu’s vibrant and layered response to Hopper’s work invites us to reconsider themes of isolation and introspection through a contemporary lens, highlighting the enduring relevance of Hopper’s vision while embracing new perspectives.”
The exhibition centers around Matsu’s new large-scale painting Morning Sun Dance. Of the work that inspired his painting, Matsu says, “While Hopper’s Morning Sun captures a moment of introspective stillness within the psychological landscape of mid-century urban life, his treatment of solitude, light, and constructed space continues to influence my own approach to thinking about isolation as well as my approach to painting.”
In Morning Sun, Hopper depicts a woman sitting on her bed in the sun, alone in an empty room, wearing a plain orange dress and a simple, contemplative expression. In Morning Sun Dance, Matsu paints a solitary woman with a similarly meditative expression. However, Matsu populates her space with more personal artifacts than Hopper did: dogs, magazines, and a seemingly expensive couch. Her clothes are a mixture of Western and Japanese designs, a William Morris textile combined with a traditional Japanese pattern. She has a Sports Illustrated poster of Muhammad Ali on the wall, indicating her affinity with what he represents: modernity and diversity. Notably, Matsu also positions his figure looking away from the window toward her full room, while Hopper’s is staring out into the city, suggesting commercialism as a coping mechanism and reflecting the changing nature of solitude in contemporary 2025 society.
The exhibition will also feature Matsu’s process drawings, which reveal how the artist engaged with Hopper’s use of light, figuration, and abstraction. Two additional smaller paintings by Matsu also reinterpret Hopper’s iconic figure in the orange dress—one from Hopper’s original perspective, and the other from an external vantage point, as if observing the figure from the outside.
“This exhibition offers a fascinating dialogue between two artists from different eras, both grappling with the complexities of modern life and the experience of solitude,” says Kathleen Motes Bennewitz, Executive Director of the Edward Hopper House Museum. “Matsu’s vibrant and layered response to Hopper’s work invites us to reconsider themes of isolation and introspection through a contemporary lens, highlighting the enduring relevance of Hopper’s vision while embracing new perspectives.”
Tomokazu Matsuyama, Morning Sun Dance, 2025, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
Tomokazu Matsuyama (b. 1976, Gifu, Japan) creates work that responds to his own bicultural experience growing up between Japan and the United States. With a practice that bridges Eastern and Western aesthetics, Matsuyama repositions traditional icons within a broader global context, creating a distinctive style that resists cultural categorization and embodies his “struggle of reckoning the familiar local with the familiar global.” By raising questions of national and individual identity through the formal qualities and subject matter of his paintings, Matsuyama examines the “natural chaos” of our social environments and challenges viewers to confront their own conceptions of cultural homogeneity.
Matsuyama’s notable exhibitions include a solo presentation at the 2024 Venice Biennale, the Long Museums in both Shanghai and Chongqing, China; Azabudai Hills Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Hong Kong Contemporary Art (HOCA) Foundation, Hong Kong; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; and Museum of Contemporary Art Museum, Sydney, Australia, and more. His works are in the permanent collections of LACMA, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,Bentonville, AR, USA; The Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL, USA; The Royal Family, Prince of Dubai, UAE; Bank of Sharjah Collection, Dubai, UAE; Microsoft Collection, and more.
Matsuyama lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Matsuyama’s notable exhibitions include a solo presentation at the 2024 Venice Biennale, the Long Museums in both Shanghai and Chongqing, China; Azabudai Hills Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Hong Kong Contemporary Art (HOCA) Foundation, Hong Kong; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; and Museum of Contemporary Art Museum, Sydney, Australia, and more. His works are in the permanent collections of LACMA, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,Bentonville, AR, USA; The Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL, USA; The Royal Family, Prince of Dubai, UAE; Bank of Sharjah Collection, Dubai, UAE; Microsoft Collection, and more.
Matsuyama lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Tomokazu Matsuyama, photo by Fumihiko Sugino
Matsuyama says about his upcoming exhibition at Edward Hopper House Museum:
While Edward Hopper’s Morning Sun captures a moment of introspective stillness within the psychological landscape of mid-century urban life, his treatment of solitude, light, and constructed space continues to echo in my own approach to painting. Rather than direct reference, I find a quiet resonance in how his work stages the tension between presence and absence—between what is illuminated and what remains unseen.
While Edward Hopper’s Morning Sun captures a moment of introspective stillness within the psychological landscape of mid-century urban life, his treatment of solitude, light, and constructed space continues to echo in my own approach to painting. Rather than direct reference, I find a quiet resonance in how his work stages the tension between presence and absence—between what is illuminated and what remains unseen.
Edward Hopper, "Morning Sun" 1952, Oil on canvas. Courtesy Columbus Museum of Art, OH, Howald Fund Purchase. © 2025 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Through a painterly language that bridges figuration and abstraction, I explore similar emotional undercurrents, reconfiguring them within a chromatic atmosphere that reflects today’s visual and psychological realities. In this way, Hopper’s legacy becomes not a model to follow, but a layered point of departure—one that invites reinterpretation through color, composition, and the shifting nuances of contemporary solitude.
