Midnight Tears
2023Acrylic on canvas240.5 x 220 cm
Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959, Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, Japan) is one of the most celebrated Japanese artists from the second half of the 20th century. His images of children, at times menacing, challenging, and defiant, or else melancholic and uncertain, have become beloved icons and can often be seen in demonstrations and protests, in line with the artist’s activism and commitment to serious issues. Nara makes art with traditional methods, inspired by his childhood and his personal history, under the influence of music, literature and film, nature, and the history of both European and Japanese art.
Born in 1959 in suburban Hirosaki, in northern Japan, Nara grew up during the so-called Japanese economic miracle, spending long hours on his own, in contact with nature and surrounded by animals, listening to a radio he had built himself that was to expand his universe.
In 1987, after getting his master’s degree in fine arts and music from Aichi Prefectural University of the Arts , Nara moved to Germany to study at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. His years in Germany marked a significant development in his work, as he moved from drawing to painting, simplifying his compositions. This led to deceptively simple paintings whose underlying emotional complexity was instantly hailed in the art scene as highly original.
In 2000, Nara returned to Japan. His first solo exhibition at a public museum was held at the Yokohama Museum of Art in 2001, featuring paintings as well as drawings, sculptures, and the first group action in which he took part. This show placed Nara among the leading Japanese artists.
Midnight Tears (2023) was created at a moment in the artist’s career when he was changing his approach to art. The blur effect of his loose brushstroke reflects the emotional development of a society affected by a number of catastrophic events: the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the subsequent tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The watery effect in Midnight Tears sets it apart from Nara’s previous works, with their solid color backgrounds, and also from his later pieces, whose surfaces are the result of multiple color layers and brushstrokes, cohesively pasted together, visible only on a close look. In Midnight Tears, the girl’s pale skin, which looks even from a distance, reveals a pearlescent universe created by overlying tones. The girl’s square face stands out, framed by iridescent hair that seems to blend into the dress at the neck. Her mouth, an expressionless orange red line, is counterbalanced by expressive eyes—typical of Nara’s output—flooded with tears about to roll down.
Original title
Midnight Tears
Date
2023
Medium/Materials
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions
240.5 x 220 cm