“… Ai☆Madonna’s solo exhibition at GR Gallery, I Am Not Saying: -Give Me Money Because You Feel Sorry For Me.-, is true to the tradition of Japanese manga illustration, a style typically used to produce comic books, and subsequently, television. Ai☆Madonna inserts this style into the contemporary arts sphere, where she adopts traditional painting techniques with canvas and acrylic paint to create a visual vocabulary that is closely associated with popular manga and anime of the digital age. For an artist whose roots are based in the underground, and often illicit, street art culture, her decision to pursue recognition via a traditional gallery space introduces questions about the artist’s relationship to the role of the gallery...”