Green Eyes

Tokyo-based artist Yoshitomo Nara creates deceptively simple paintings, sculptures, and drawings, which have gained him international recognition for his neo-pop style. Inviting us to reconnect with the defiant spirit that comes with youthful optimism and the belief that we may someday be able to change the world, his works feature big-eyed children's expressions, oscillating between sadness, mischievousness, or even malevolence. Born in 1959, Nara was raised during an era in Japan defined by aggressive economic development and an invasion of Western pop culture - including the animation of Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Like many Japanese children of this era, Nara was a "latch-key kid" who spent his time after school in a rural area of Japan with only his imagination and pets for company. Absorbing the excitements of new technology through the medium of the television, Nara, like many others, uses the obsession with Japanese Manga to create cartoon-like images reminiscent of video games. Not only does his work speak an international language of youthful boredom, alienation, anger and bewilderment, but it also speaks to adults who retain a connection with their inner child. Nara's children stand apart and alone, fiercely independent with their direct gazes and sour grins that hint at much more adult feelings like fear, anxiety, and vengefulness. Nara invites us to return to a time when innocence and unruliness went together, when there was no need to hide certain emotions, when make-believe was not equated with lunacy and when the world was a fantastic and terrifying realm to be explored. Nara's works which enjoy a cult status in his native Japan, and now internationally, are among the most recognizable of contemporary art images.