Yasushi Matsui (b. 1982, ¥@$©)

Art and Craft Lover Yasushi Matsui, born in the US and grown up in Japan, is a painter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, envisioning his art through artmaking, live painting, murals, and illustration. He has exhibited his work in Northern California at venues including Anno Domini Gallery in San Jose, CA in February 2020, Epitome Gallery in Eureka, CA in March 2023, and TigarBunnuy Studio in San Francisco, CA in February 2025.

Besides his traditional brushwork, he is also broadly engaged in digital creation, such as design, video production, and programing. Despite having no professional training and only a love for music, he creates beats and DJs with his collection of vinyls and tapes under the name ¥@$©.

His art practice began to define its own line stroke, which is named “NoA-“, resembling a improvisational line drawing that is somewhat reminiscent of Japanese Calligraphy but also Graffiti. This exploration extended to his experimentation with unity between Painting and Sound through modern technology, known as “EToOto (Painting with Sound)”. After years of exploring the abstraction, he shifted to refine his traditional drawing and painting skills by sketching on scrap papers during his travel and daily life. He then began printing collections of these drawings using a home printer, akin to zine culture, which evolved into a project called “SKRAPS”.

He has also published a collection of time-lapse videos documenting the mural production process online. In addition to his silkscreen printing project called “PulluP”, which aim to upcycle used clothes by printing his original illustrations and designs, he has expanded to collaborate with YouthAbility Thrift store in Arcata to print on their donated second-hand clothing.