The Surreal Gardens of Nymphomania in Oil Paintings by Masaya Yoshioka

Though the self-taught painter Masaya Yoshioka works with oil on a panel, which is a feature of the so-called yoga (Western style) paintings, the content of his art is deeply connected not only with Munch or Van Gogh but also with Japanese culture and the shunga genre in particular. As the artist writes on his Instagram, "If shunga didn't exist in this world, my paintings would be different."

Fig. 1. Blue self-portrait (Instagram.com)

Fig. 2. By the sea (Instagram.com)

Fig. 3. Blue girl (Instagram.com)

Fig. 4. Instagram.com

Fig. 5. Couple, 2001 (Instagram.com)

Fig. 6. Couple (Instagram.com)

Fig. 7. Convenience store (Instagram.com)

Fig. 8. Park (Instagram.com)

Fig. 9. Man and woman (Instagram.com)

Fig. 10. Instagram.com

Fig. 11. Concubine (Instagram.com)

Fig. 12. Instagram.com

Fig. 13. Origin of the world (Instagram.com)

Fig. 14. Instagram.com

Hidden and Exposed

There is not much info about this artist on the web. Yoshioka himself remarks that "the works speak more eloquently than the author," so the audience must primarily enjoy interacting with the art. On the other hand, many of his paintings are accompanied by an extensive personal commentary that looks more like a fragment of a diary, often filled with bitter memories. All that's known about Yoshioka's curriculum vitae is that he was born in 1981 in Hyogo Prefecture and started drawing at 12 years old. The note on the Tokyo Art Beat platform states Yoshioka's initial training was copying shunga prints when he was only five years old, which sounds rather dubious yet remarkable. As the artist confesses, "I feel like most things were decided by someone else. But it was my own will that I wanted to become a painter. That was the only thing." In 2006, his work To a Place Where the Light Is, which portrays a kid's figure walking towards a store gleaming in the dark, was honored with an Encouragement Award at the Shell Art exhibition. After winning a prize, the work should have appeared at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Center, yet it was rejected by the government. If the exposition included a series of his paintings, it could explain the ban because the leitmotif of Yoshioka's panels is sexual intercourse in public places, such as parks, gardens, or parking lots of convenience stores. His next exhibition in Tokyo happened only in 2023.

Fig. 15. To a Place Where the Light Is, 2006 (Instagram.com)

Fig. 16. Sea Opening (Instagram.com)

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Sources: instagram.com/masayayoshioka_painter/; note.com/yoichitamori/; idemitsu.com, akantiek.nl