WAVE - New Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts
An introduction to the panorama of contemporary Japanese graphic arts and illustrations.
Wave' Exhibition at Japan House São Paulo (2022-02-22/2022-05-01) by Japan House São PauloJAPAN HOUSE São Paulo
Bringing together 55 works by pioneering and young emerging artists in the current scene, the exhibition presents creations in various styles and themes, not only in the traditional art scene but also in manga, animations, and advertisements.
The selected works showcase the rich and varied work of these artists, showing how their creations for books, magazines, animations, posters, and other platforms extend far beyond manga and anime, already known to the Brazilian public.
Renowned artists, some celebrated for founding artistic movements, such as Teruhiko Yumura (1942), Akira Uno (1934), and Keiichi Tanaami (1936), are featured alongside young talents like Masanori Ushiki (1981) and Mayu Yukishita (1995).
Graphic art and illustration have a long history in Japan
and are vibrant forces in contemporary Japanese culture.
"Although many post-war artists were influenced by Western art and media, today's graphic artists and illustrators are inspired by various sources, including traditional Japanese paintings and ukiyo-e woodblock prints, folk art, photography, architecture, fantasy, and pop art,” explain curators and artists Kintaro Takahashi and Hiro Sugiyama.
Manga / Anime
The illustration of Japanese comic stories, known as manga, has deep roots in painted scrolls from the 12th century, pre-modern woodblock prints, and early 20th-century magazines.
After World War II, influenced by American comics and cartoons, a modern manga style developed with visual conventions that still persist in Japanese comics and cartoons, known as anime.
Art with Social and Urban ThemesJAPAN HOUSE São Paulo
The popular manga/anime style features strong lines, expressive speech balloons, unique framing, and abstract background effects that convey the atmosphere of the moment.
Characters have large eyes, small mouths, and emotive details like sweat drops to show anxiety, bulging veins for anger, and strong parallel lines to indicate horror or disgust. Some of the artists working in this style are Kenichiro Mizuno, Katsuya Terada, and Motohiro Hayakawa.
Heta-uma
In the 1970s, an underground manga movement began with the magazine Garo, where artists created illustrations that intentionally looked poorly drawn compared to the sleek aesthetic of popular manga.
Known as heta-uma (“badly drawn but well-conceived”), the style was led and promoted by Teruhiko Yumura, Yoshikazu Ebisu, and Takashi Nemoto.
This style validated the work of many contemporary young graphic and manga artists, whose works may appear unpolished but are highly expressive emotionally. In this exhibition, although her style is highly refined, artist Suzy Amakane represents the spirit of heta-uma.
Trilogy of Colorful PaintingsJAPAN HOUSE São Paulo
Pop Art
The pop art movement, which emerged in the 1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom, soon reached Japan.
Andy Warhol's ability to unite the world of commercial art with fine arts inspired Keiichi Tanaami, whose bold and dynamic designs are filled with dreamlike figures, popular themes, and powerful characters.
In a similar vein, Motohiro Hayakawa’s fantastic battle scenes evoke the psychedelic pop art of the 1960s and 1970s. Harumi Yamaguchi’s bright images of strong and free women adorned Japanese advertising campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s, while Hiroshi Nagai’s vivid poolside scenes became iconic images displayed on album covers in the 1980s.
Photorealism
Developed in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s from pop art,
especially in response to abstract expressionism and the proliferation of photography, it inspired Japanese artists such as Hajime Sorayama, who depicted female robots and mechanical dinosaurs with luminous detail, and Yoko Kawamoto, who transforms scrap piles and quarries into hyper-realistic landscapes. Recently, Mayu Yukishita has recreated a darker reality with her "super-realistic" paintings.
Press play and discover more details about this exhibition:
Japan House São Paulo
Avenida Paulista, 52
Bela Vista – São Paulo/SP
Telefone: +55 11 3090-8900
