Chiho Aoshima

With a mastery of computer technology and a vocabulary of images drawn from Japanese comics and animation, the Tokyo artist Chiho Aoshima creates fantasy worlds in which hybridized creatures are participants in the composition's narrative as well as elements in a decorative scheme. Magma Spirit Explodes. Tsunami Is Dreadful, a mural that spans a 40-foot wall, is a narrative of almost cinematic scope and complexity. Nature and humanity wreak havoc in myriad ways, from tidal waves to fiery conflagrations and war. These disasters, however, have been carefully choreographed; bright flames to the left of the composition give way in effortless transition to volcanic puffs of smoke that are in turn transformed into the blue-green expanse of a tsunami. At the center of the mural, a giantess presides; she displays the round-eyed prettiness and flowing hair of a stereotypical animé ingénue. Belching smoke and snorting flames, arms and hair tendrils flailing wildly, she is soul and mistress of the mayhem, alluringly beautiful yet terrible in her anger.

Selected Bibliography:

Darling, Michael. "Plumbing the Depths of Superflatness." Art Journal 61 (Spring 2001): 76–89.

Fujitsu, Ryota. "Superflat: Battle of America." Bijutsu Techo (Tokyo) 53 (April 2001): 179–90.

Kandel, Susan. "Oops, I Dropped My Dumplings." Artext 73 (May–July 2001): 40–45.

Murakami, Takashi. "A Theory of Super Flat Japanese Art." In Superflat. Tokyo: Madra Publishing and Takashi Murakami, 2000, 8–25, 117.

Murakami, Takashi, ed. Tokyo Girls Bravo. Saitama: Kaikai Kiki Corporation, 2002.

Links:

Matrix exhibition

Frieze article