Beijing Tokyo Art Projects | Super Acrylic Skin Photon — Imaginary Temperature ★★★✩✩

The first solo show on the Chinese mainland for Japanese animation artist Hiroyuki Matsuura is now on at Beijing Tokyo Art Projects. It’s an all-too-brief foray into the fascinatingly kitsch world of manga.

From a sensory perspective, the show is beautiful. Graphics slick as racing stripes, smooth contours, luscious eye-candy colors, and textures of fur, plastic and resin make for a juicy little manga palette.

Matsuura is known for his technical prowess, interesting compositions and juxtaposition of words and visuals. “Super Acrylic” refers to his new format—the characters have grown from paint-on-canvas to life-size, and glow out of LED light boxes. Matsuura feels the new light-box design and the heat it generates in the room breathes life into the characters, bringing the fantasy world a step closer to our own.

Small, furry porcelain rabbits in pastel balaclavas assemble on a table, while a black-mirrored room crowded with monkey-like tails and faces challenges the viewer: “Are you down with us?” His characters are at their strongest when they have a dark edge, like “Strawberry Switchblade,” a work showing a mop-haired girl in tulle plunging her face into a cupcake. The interplay between fantastically child-like animation and sinister character motivation imbues them with unlikely power.

BTAP has done an admirable job conceiving different spaces so that characters exist in their own environments. But the journey is all too short. Five minutes and you’re through the whole thing with little supplementary explanation. The quickly consumed imagery whets the appetite, but leaves you unsatisfied.

Sophie McKinnon

When: Through Jan. 31