Yuji Moriguchi’s creature-filled paintings play with the sensibilities and tropes of manga and Ukiyo-e. Elsewhere in the artist’s work, he pulls on the thread of erotic art that has coursed through Japanese comic history. His recent work seems to take on a decidedly mystical tone.
Manga artist Shintaro Kago subverts the form in his provocative, occasionally grotesque narratives. In one tale, in particular, the typical panels become three-dimension vessels, from which his characters break out and manipulate. “Abstraction” shows off both Kago’s knack for the unsettling and the satirical.
In Tabaimo‘s worlds, nothing is as ordinary as it appears. Light bulbs morph into moons, walls dissolve, and trees turn into snakes. These eldritch environments capture the viewer who stands at the center, and transports him into an unknown underbelly of the everyday. The artist achieves a totaling effect by manipulating architectural elements and allowing hand-drawn animations that reference both Japanese manga and traditional Edo-period prints, to organically bleed out of the two-dimensional plane and into the exhibition space. The result is a pseudo-theater where the viewer is the main actor among anthropomorphic objects and a cast of characters, whose interplay raises social, political, and gendered topics of contemporary import.
There is nothing perfect about the pretty “Tokyo girls” that artist Tomoyoshi Sakamoto paints. Sweet with a twist of irony, his acrylic paintings are representative of Neo-Nihonga Japanese style. In one painting, girls play “dress up” in a scene that would look like any typical sleepover. As they apply their makeup, one horrifyingly ties strings to another’s watery eyes. Tears are a common characteristic of Sakamoto’s subjects, as they inflict pain and humiliation upon themselves. Not all of his works are graphic, but more melancholy.
It’s not manga. This is the starting point of a conversation that Yoshitomo Nara will host today about his debut solo exhibition in Hong Kong, “Life is Only One.” The show opened last night at the Asia Society, named after Nara’s painting “Life is Only One!”, featuring a child holding a skull as he contemplates life. In a recent interview, Nara shared, “When I was a child, the word “life” itself, of course, was a foreign concept. After turning 50, however, and with the deaths of people close to me and with the recent earthquake, I started to think about life more realistically – the limits of life, and the importance of what one can accomplish during that time.”
On Saturday, CHG Circa revealed Kazuki Takamatsu’s much anticipated second solo with the gallery (previewed here), “Spiral of Emotions”. Takamatsu, who was in attendance from Japan, has captured the curiosity of his fans with his signature technique called Depth Mapping. Ask Takamatsu about his perplexing style and he might label it as “Shojo-Irasuto”, or a style of illustration inspired by Japanese girl’s comics. He is part of a new generation that celebrates its pop culture, which we see in his goddess-like school girls with a heavenly aura. Takamatsu once fronted his own punk rock band, “Almond Crush”, and follows current fashion trends, but he also has a spiritual side rooted in cultural tradition. His twelve new paintings explore this tug of war between the old and new.