Artist talks: Michi Meko and Tomokazu Matsuyama

Name: Artist talks: Michi Meko and Tomokazu Matsuyama
Start: 2025-09-18T14:00:00-04:00
Location: 601 Turner Blvd, Savannah, GA, United States, Georgia 31401

Schedule

Thu, 18 Sep, 2025 at 02:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

601 Turner Blvd, Savannah, GA, United States, Georgia 31401 | Savannah, GA

Hear from artists Michi Meko and Tomokazu Matsuyama during two in-depth conversations as they elucidate the bearings of their new exhibitions, presented as part of the SCAD Museum of Art’s fall season. Contextualizing his immersive, cosmic paintings that evoke turbulent skies, undulating seascapes, and billowy marshes, Meko reveals the biographical and socio-environmental implications of his gestural work. A first-generation Japanese American, Matsuyama will share the cross-cultural experiences that shape his work and discuss the diverse sources and stories that inform his broad visual vocabulary.
This event is free and open to the public.
About the artists
Michi Meko (b. 1974, Florence, Ala.; lives and works in Atlanta) develops work spanning painting, sculpture, and installation, activating spray paint and found objects to create layered compositions. His gestures reflect an interplay between beauty and violence, rebellion and reflection, and past and future. Meko’s artworks interrogate themes of identity and resilience by offering an exploration of light, texture, and form. The landscape of the U.S., with its layered histories of fugitivity and survival, serves as both a backdrop and a starting point for his examination of race, place, and memory. Through the use of repurposed and hand-built tools, Meko’s compositions invite viewers to engage with multifaceted narratives that speak to emotional, psychological, and ecological histories. Meko is the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and the Atlanta Artadia Award. Recent exhibitions of Meko’s work include The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Richmond; Michi Meko: Black and Blur, Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, Atlanta; Michi Meko: It Doesn’t Prepare You for Arrival, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta; Michi Meko: Before We Blast off: The Journey of Divine Forces, Atlanta Contemporary; and Abstraction Today, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta. His work is held in the collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; King & Spalding, Atlanta; Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas, Scion (Toyota Motor Corporation), Los Angeles; and CW Network, Atlanta, among others.
Tomokazu Matsuyama (b. 1976, Gifu, Japan; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) earned his M.F.A. in communications design from the Pratt Institute, New York. Major public art projects include Color of the City for the Houston Bowery Wall program, New York; Hanao at the JR Shinjuku Station East Square, Tokyo; and Wheels of Fortune at Meiji Shrine, Tokyo, as part of the 2020 Jingu Gaien Art Festival. Matsuyama’s important exhibitions include FIRST LAST at Azabudai Hills Gallery, Tokyo; Mythologiques for the Arsenale at the 60th Venice Biennale; and MATSUYAMA Tomokazu: Fictional Landscape at Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan, and Shanghai Powerlong Museum. His work was also featured in Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann &... at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Matsuyama’s works are held in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Ark.; Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid; The Royal Family, Prince of Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Bank of Sharjah, Dubai; Microsoft, and more.