Tanaami Keiichi and Yumura Teruhiko featured alongside a number of emerging artists being exhibited for the first time in the UK.</p><p>Graphic arts featured in the exhibition include elements of pop art, surrealism and illustration, as well as the concept of heta-uma, which translates as ‘bad, but good’, and refers to apparently unskilled art which reveals greater merit upon close inspection. Emerging in the underground manga magazine GARO in the 1970s, heta-uma challenges our perspective of what is ‘ugly’ or ‘beautiful’ and our definitions of art itself.</p><p>Variety and anarchy are ever-present in WAVE, with Jenny kaori’s bold, punky depictions of girlhood juxtaposed against Yukishita Mayu’s brooding photorealist portraits and husband and wife team tupera tupera’s delightful children’s book illustration.</p><p>Inspired by an annual exhibition in Tokyo of the same name, and curated by artists Hiro Sugiyama and Takahashi Kintarō, WAVE: Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts presents a rare opportunity to experience the diversity of Japanese illustration and graphic arts in one place outside Japan.<br><br></p>" />