Untitled

In the early 1980s, Yoshitomo Nara, who was still attending university in Nagoya, lived alone in a prefabricated house surrounded by trees. Every day, he had music blasting from loud speakers as he scribbled and drew. He captured the fleeting inspirations on whatever pieces of paper that were lying about him, and wrote some wild manifestos or lyrics to the rock songs he was listening to beside his drawings. As he recalled, “In retrospect, it was like keeping a sketch diary. I drew everything that moved me on that day, as if I was writing in a diary. It made every day a meaningful experience.” As for his graduation portfolio, Nara, who was a painting major, forsook oil on canvas for coloured pencil on paper, a medium he was well-familiar with. It was a rare move for students who majored in painting at the time.

To this day, drawing on paper remains an important medium for Yoshitomo Nara’s spontaneous expression of genuine feelings, and it plays an essential role in his creative development. This season, we are pleased toshowcase ten unique works on paper featuring different formats and themes, representing different periods of Nara’s career. The selection reveals intimate moments and subtle emotions that have rippled in the artist’s life. For instance, in A Puppy with Green (Lot 104), the carefree expression of the white dog surrounded by trees appears to be a reflection of Nara the artist who scribbles by himself. He also uses scraps of notebook paper and recycled envelopes for his spontaneous creations (Lots 101, 103, 107, 108), which resound with a destructive and rebellious intensity that echoes rock music. Live for Moment (Lot 106) is a drawing on brown paper. The trembling child holds her arms out horizontally, while she struggles to keep her balance standing on tip toe on one foot on the rope. It is an allusion to the world of adults, which is filled with uncertainty and the unknown. Untitled (Lot 111) is an early painting on canvas by Nara, who created it when he was studying at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf in Germany. It is the prototype of his later and recurrent paintings of the child. The work embodies perspectives of Neo-expressionism, while the composition is filed with daring pencil work and warm colours. In the drawing, the girl grasps a small knife in her hand and conveys a sense of caution. The flower beside her stands tall and reaches half of her body height, which highlights her petite figure. The girl and the flower stand inside the rippling water, as if they were lost in a solitary dream.

Nara’s sculptures of sleep-walking figures first appeared in a 1999 solo exhibition. A fibreglass sculpture, The Little Pilgrim (Night Walking) (Lot 112) entices viewer with its smooth and translucent surface. The doll holds out her hands slightly, and keeps her eyes gently closed like a sleeping angel. The familiar white dog returns as the protagonist in I Think, Therefore I Am… A Dog (Lot 113) He once said, “The docile expression of the dog is an unfortunate reminder of childhood for me.”

Be it the solitary girl, or the doll and the dog in the dreamland, these images of gentle souls exist in all our hearts. Nara does not shy away from exposing his delicate, sensitive interior world; he endows his characters with props like a quirky microphone or even a small and sharp knife, revealing an innocence and honesty that mark a distinct kind of courage. Nara has preserved the sincerity and passion that propelled him to pick up the pencil and draw what crossed his mind at the start of his creative voyage, when he depicted his feelings in a genuine expression that was as spontaneous as breathing. These deeply personal works are akin to extensions of the childhood, and they are the genesis of his artistic creation.