Yuki Matsueda ‘- This is EXIT square (green), 2018

In EXIT, Yuki Matsueda once again distorts the mundane and familiar to deliver a surprising conceptual twist. What begins as a standard Japanese emergency exit sign—bright green with the word “非常口 (EXIT)” and a pictogram of a running man—becomes a portal of action and rebellion. The flat running figure bursts out of the signage frame, physically escaping the confines of its pictogram world.

This piece encapsulates Matsueda’s signature obsession: taking static icons and liberating them into motion, in defiance of their original symbolic constraints.

Conceptual Significance:

• The escape motif is literal and symbolic. The emergency sign, designed to direct people in crisis, is transformed into a scene where the figure has already made the leap—from symbol to freedom.

• The piece questions compliance, structure, and the expectation of conformity. What happens when the exit sign itself can’t contain the escape?

The figure’s motion, caught mid-stride and still attached to its stretched PET "membrane," evokes a surreal and humorous moment: a visual rupture between function and form.

Technical and Material Execution:

• Illuminated light box provides a clean, modern aesthetic while mimicking real emergency signage.

• Vacuum-formed PET plastic is used to create the illusion of the surface being stretched and punctured by the figure.

• The figure is rendered in a translucent green, matching the color code of safety signs, but its dimensional escape adds irony to its obedient role.

The result is both playful and conceptually potent—part signage, part sculpture, part performance frozen in time.

Artist's Vision:

Yuki Matsueda is known for his intellectual playfulness and exacting execution, blending graphic design, sculpture, and product engineering. EXIT fits squarely into his body of work focused on the emancipation of form—giving flat objects a will and trajectory of their own.