LOT 37
YOSHITOMO NARA
B. Japan, 1960
Cosmic Girl (Eyes Open), 2008
Offset lithographic poster printed in colours on wove, from the edition of 500
72 x 52 cm
Private Collection, Singapore Published by Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, on the occasion of the artist’s exhibition from an edition of 500. LITERATURE: ‘Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works 1984-2010, Volume I’, Bijutsu Shuppan Sha, Tokyo, Japan, 2011, p.143 (illustrated in colour)
RM 25,000 – RM 45,000
Influenced by elements of popular culture such as anime, manga, Walt Disney cartoons, and punk rock, Yoshitomo Nara creates paintings, sculptures, and drawings of adorable- yet-sinister childlike characters. Painted with simple bold lines, primary colours, and set against empty backgrounds, these small children and animals often share the canvas with text, knives, plants, and cardboard boxes, among other recurring elements. As one of the fathers and central figures of the Japanese Neo-Pop movement, Nara’s work expresses the struggle to find an identity fractured by war, rapid modernisation, and an omnipresent visual culture. Nara’s sculptures, made primarily from fibreglass, and his drawings on postcards, envelopes, and scraps of paper, further this exploration using the same elegance of line and simple palette as his paintings.