London WAVE: Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts Exhibition
Since its 2018 debut in Tokyo, WAVE has travelled the world with an annual exhibition showcasing Japanese graphic arts with a diverse range of genres and bringing together fine art, commercial illustration and counterculture in one space.
This year, WAVE takes place in the heart of Kensington High Street, Japan House, the epicentre of Japanese culture in London, curated by Hiro Sugiyama and Takahashi Kintarō.
Photographer:Jeremie Souteyrat Copyright/ Credit:Japan House London
Words by Alekia Gill
This month, the centre has had a profound boost in popularity due to its most recent exhibition; WAVE: Current in Japanese Graphic Arts. Not only a meticulously curated selection of a diverse range of artists and art styles, the exhibition stands out due to its choice of accompanying talks and activities, such as a badge-making workshop that attracts both young and old. There’s nothing like giving your visitors a permanent reminder to help spread the word. Shining a light on a whopping sixty artists, the breadth of illustration styles is impressive, to say the least.
We are asked to examine the dissolving border between the titles ‘Illustrator’ and ‘Artist’, which is vital to understand when looking at this new wave of graphic art in Japan and worldwide. Making connections with the Nippon Graphic Exhibition, founded in 1980, the show highlights the work of artists we don’t usually see exhibited in galleries, who work with companies and advertisers to sell products along a specific commission or prompt. Illustrators are able to label their work as fine art, and still produce commercial design work, avoiding the damaging stereotype of illustrators creating ‘superficial’ art. Significantly, the gallery boasts a team of staff who are finely attuned to the meaning and motivations behind each piece, offering half an hour talks focusing on just one piece of art at a time, elucidating insightful discussions and ideas with members of the public.
The showcase includes both printed and original works, in both digital and traditional mediums. Curators Hiro Sugiyama and Takahashi Kintarō hardly shy away from presenting and explaining specific art styles and movements such as heta-uma, nihonga, and Japanese pop art.
The show smoothly runs between hyperrealism, super realism, and photo realism (yes they are different things!) alongside abstract, cartoon-like images. These are sourced from comics, books, and adverts, and range from the size of a poster to the length of the gallery wall. Some pieces seem digitally rendered but have been painted by hand, producing surrealist images marked by the trademarks of the digital era. Despite being a relatively small space, the area is saturated with such vivid and imaginative art that one could spend hours walking around, going back to piece after piece.
Chen's Shoe by Chikatsu Takeo
I attended a talk on Chikatsu Takeo’s piece, Chen’s Shoe. Takeo began illustrating in the 1990s, and as part of his work, he has created a detailed series of shoes, each with their own brief backstory. The work is perhaps the most unassuming piece in the gallery, especially when placed alongside works like Hayakawa Motohiro’s bright, sci-fi-inspired X Planet Battles and Yuta Nakajima’s expressionistic alien scene, Consult. Despite this, Takeo drew out the subtleties of the work and its exploration of everyday life, through an object so mundane and familiar that it almost passes us by.
Here we see why the exhibition is perfect for those new to art as well as those who consider themselves connoisseurs. Some images are intended for our visual enjoyment, to catch our eye and make us keep looking, whereas others require you to dig through symbols to find meaning, an altogether rewarding and enlightening experience.
Consult by Yuta Nakajima
X Planet Battles by Hayakawa Motohiro