I explore new facets of the world.
BIOGRAPHY :
Kikoh Matsuura
Contemporary Natural History Artist
Kikoh Matsuura is a Contemporary Natural History Artist who works at the intersection of art and science to explore realms beyond human perception—both scientifically and sensorially—and to present new aspects of the world. He personally owns and operates a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), which visualizes nanoscale structures, and a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM), which enables observation at the atomic level. Through these instruments, he carries out a consistent practice spanning observation, artistic production, and long-term archival preservation.
In his representative work Withered Plant, Matsuura observes withered plants using SEM, revealing the beauty of life’s cycle in which death and life quietly coexist. He further preserves his observation data in a research data archive, where it functions as a scientific record while also carrying traces of existence forward as cultural memory to be inherited by the future. He frames this series of actions as “observation–recording–inheritance,” practicing it as a reconstruction of natural history in the contemporary age. Through scientific observation, he reflects on life, time, and regeneration, pursuing an artistic practice in which the act of observing itself becomes art.
His activities include commemorative works for Chugai Pharmaceutical’s 100th anniversary and the Pfizer 70th Anniversary Exhibition. In collaboration with Shimadzu Corporation, he has worked on projects addressing the visualization of brain activity, exhibited at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art. He has also presented works developed with the Institute for Molecular Science that transform atomic energy into sound. Traversing the fields of science, medicine, and technology, he continues to deepen “the art of observation.”
STATEMENT
There are phenomena in our world that slip through the net of perception—
the disintegration of cells, the vibration of atoms, the minute electrical shifts in neural activity that stir memory.
I seek to make visible and audible the “signs of existence” that dwell beyond perception, working in the interval between scientific technology and sensation, guided by a poetic gaze.
Using electron microscopy, genetic analysis, and brainwave measurement, the expressions that arise as sound, light, and image are merely triggers for perception.
What matters is the gaze that tries to touch the structures and presences that lie beyond—the ever-changing presence of reality drifting just before the threshold of the intangible.
In my representative work Withered Plant, I observed the microstructures of desiccated flora with an SEM, revealing the “movement of life” within “death.”
I gather fragments of life, consciousness, and the cosmos, quietly exploring the as-yet-unseen contours of a fluid, multilayered world that extends beyond perception — not in pursuit of understanding, but in quiet resonance.
Contemporary Natural History Artist
Kikoh Matsuura is a Contemporary Natural History Artist who works at the intersection of art and science to explore realms beyond human perception—both scientifically and sensorially—and to present new aspects of the world. He personally owns and operates a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), which visualizes nanoscale structures, and a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM), which enables observation at the atomic level. Through these instruments, he carries out a consistent practice spanning observation, artistic production, and long-term archival preservation.
In his representative work Withered Plant, Matsuura observes withered plants using SEM, revealing the beauty of life’s cycle in which death and life quietly coexist. He further preserves his observation data in a research data archive, where it functions as a scientific record while also carrying traces of existence forward as cultural memory to be inherited by the future. He frames this series of actions as “observation–recording–inheritance,” practicing it as a reconstruction of natural history in the contemporary age. Through scientific observation, he reflects on life, time, and regeneration, pursuing an artistic practice in which the act of observing itself becomes art.
His activities include commemorative works for Chugai Pharmaceutical’s 100th anniversary and the Pfizer 70th Anniversary Exhibition. In collaboration with Shimadzu Corporation, he has worked on projects addressing the visualization of brain activity, exhibited at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art. He has also presented works developed with the Institute for Molecular Science that transform atomic energy into sound. Traversing the fields of science, medicine, and technology, he continues to deepen “the art of observation.”
STATEMENT
There are phenomena in our world that slip through the net of perception—
the disintegration of cells, the vibration of atoms, the minute electrical shifts in neural activity that stir memory.
I seek to make visible and audible the “signs of existence” that dwell beyond perception, working in the interval between scientific technology and sensation, guided by a poetic gaze.
Using electron microscopy, genetic analysis, and brainwave measurement, the expressions that arise as sound, light, and image are merely triggers for perception.
What matters is the gaze that tries to touch the structures and presences that lie beyond—the ever-changing presence of reality drifting just before the threshold of the intangible.
In my representative work Withered Plant, I observed the microstructures of desiccated flora with an SEM, revealing the “movement of life” within “death.”
I gather fragments of life, consciousness, and the cosmos, quietly exploring the as-yet-unseen contours of a fluid, multilayered world that extends beyond perception — not in pursuit of understanding, but in quiet resonance.