The pulsing portraits of Yukimasa Ida

The works in Yukimasa Ida’s new solo show, “Flaming Memory,” strike with an urgency that feels insurgent. Channeling the reckless vitality of de Kooning and the brute persistence of Frank Auerbach, the Tokyo-based artist embraces paint as a volatile and volcanic matter, shaping portraits that quiver with spontaneity and sensation. The surfaces in this show churn, swirl, and pulse as if animated from within. Alive, precarious, uncontainable.

Fiery cadmium reds and acrid yellows abound, radiating an unforgiving late summer heat. Forms flicker in and out of legibility: the nape of a neck, the crease of upturned lips, the faintest shadow of a face, snap into view before dissolving toward painterly collapse. In its own admirable way, this instability resists the clean recognitions demanded by