Acrylic on canvas

100 x 150 cm. 39 3/8 x 59 in.

Titled and signed in English， dated on reverse
LITERATURE
2011, Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works, vol. 1: Painting, Sculptures, Editions, Photographs 1984 - 2010, Bijutsu Publishing House, Tokyo, p.82
2015, Yoshitomo Nara: Self-selected Works Paintings, Seigensha Publishing House, Kyoto, p. 38 & p.153

PROVENANCE
25 May 2013, Christie's Hong Kong Spring Auction, Lot 32
Important Private Collection, Europe

MY Youth MY NEVERLAND
The Maganificent Submarines in Girl by Yoshitomo Nara
I believe that Yoshitomo Nara is one of the world's leading artists.
—Takashi Murakami
The Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara （59） is one of the greatest stars of the post-WWII art world, both in Asia and the rest of the globe. Using vivid and succinct language, he conveys various sentiments through the protagonists in his paintings, such as kindness, rebellion, loneliness, and malice. These paintings have attracted the gaze of millions of gallery-goers all throughout the world. From 1995 to 2010, his works were featured on the cover of nine issues of the Japanese art magazine Bijutsu Techō. In 2012, his personal exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art was visited 100,000 times — a figure that is unmatched by even the most popular of Japanese artists, including Takashi Murakami. Later, in 2018, the works presented in Nara's exhibition at the Hong Kong Pace Gallery virtually all sold out on opening day, a testament to his powerful artistic charm, and his works have been collected by a number of internationally renowned institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Museum in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.
Yoshitomo Nara once stated that all of his creations prior to 2001 are recollections of his childhood； for him, the creative process is a series of minute, yet important dialogues with the self. Nara grew up in the countryside as a latchkey kid and consequently had to learn how to pass time alone, for example by playing with neighbors' pets, listening to music, looking at picture books, or reading great works of literature. Later, in 1988, he was accepted into the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf （Düsseldorf Art Academy）, and he remained in Germany long after his studies, spending a total of 12 years there. During his time abroad, he transformed his experiences into creative inspiration. “In Germany, I was a foreigner who didn't speak the language. I felt alienated, much like I did when I was growing up in Aomori — a place that is relatively distant from the rest of Japan. These experiences made me reflect upon my identity and rediscover myself.” Nara's creative process is a form of self-interrogation and reflection； his works overflow with youthful vigor, libertine spirit, and personal nostalgia. It is fair to say that anyone of any age and nationality can relate to and communicate with his work. Completed in 1991, Submarines in Girl is a typical example of his early artistic experimentation. This work was not only recorded in the Complete Works of Yoshitomo Nara； the artist himself also specifically chose it for his Self-selected Works published in 2015. This adequately demonstrates that Submarines in Girl is one of the most important works in the artist's 30-year-long career.
The Significant Change: from Meticulously Narrate his Mind to Speak his Heart
With this landscape painting, Yoshitomo Nara departs from his prior attempts to tell complicated narratives in realistic detail. Submarines in Girl contrasts starkly with works completed by the artist between 1985 and 1990 （such as Case of Insanity, completed in 1985, and People on the Cloud, completed in 1989） and is demonstrative of a period of rapid growth. The background of the painting is free of any contextual particularities； the detailed houses and scenery included in his earlier works are nowhere to be found. In their place is a combination of yellow-green, blue, and pink hues that come together to form an innocent, minimalist space. The face of the little girl featured in the painting has been stretched to take up almost the entire canvas. It is almost as though her features have been pressed flat. The viewer's gaze is immediately drawn to her two widely spaced, staring eyes as well as her lips, which are curled into a smile as if mocking something or someone. The artist has stuck a red flag on the top of the protagonist's head, right in the middle of her clementine-colored hair, making her head appear like a sports field or a world map, and three submarines shuttle back and forth on this flat surface, instantly linking together reality and fantasy. The work demonstrates self-confidence, maturity, and rich imagination that were not present to the same degree in Nara's earlier works.
The painting features a composition that is minimalist without being simple. It uses a deliberately two-dimensional, flat style, with the protagonist's outline depicted in thick, black lines. Following painstaking reflection and experimentation, the artist has absorbed the essence of Japanese ukiyo-e （woodblock prints） and Western painting and combined them to form his own individual style. German art critic Stephan Trescher has pointed out, “The entire subject represented on a blank background, the relationship between the character and the flat surface, the relationship between the image and the white spaces, the ambiguity between what is printed and what is painted — Yoshitomo Nara's works share these characteristics with the works of 18th and 19th Century ukiyo-e artists such as Hiroshige Utagawa, Hokusai Katsushika, and Utamaro Kitagawa.” In Submarines in Girl, one can see how Yoshitomo Nara merges dichotomies such as East/West and modern/traditional, all while catering to trends of the time. Submarines in Girl is considered representative of a major transition in the artist's style； from this work onward, he embarked upon a new phase of artistic creation.
A Unique Perspective Inspired by Music
When I was in high school, we didn't have any photo albums at home, but we had art. I came to know art from the covers of vinyl records. Those newly imported records allowed me to comprehend art. I would listen to the music flowing out of my speakers and allow my imagination to run wild on the album covers. I believe this taught me how to represent the images that appeared in my head in ways that transcend language.
—Yoshitomo Nara
Music continually nourished Yoshitomo Nara's imagination as he developed from a child into an adult. As he said himself, during his time at a rural high school, there was relatively little entertainment to speak of, so he instead developed a knowledge of art through the covers of vinyl records. Thanks to music, he learned how to represent the figments of his imagination in “ways that transcend language”, and what is art if not a process of lending form to what was once visible only in one's own mind? In this sense, music played a crucial role in teaching Nara the fundamental skills of artistic expression. The artist had relatively eclectic tastes spanning rock, folk, and pop, and he was well-versed in the discographies of the Ramones, Bob Dylan, and the 60s star group The Beatles. Submarines in Girl is therefore inevitably reminiscent of the lyrics to The Beatles' 1966 hit Yellow Submarine and the animated movie of the same name released two years later. “In the town where I was born lived a man who sailed to sea/And he told us of his life in the land of submarines/So we sailed up to the sun till we found the sea of green/And we lived beneath the waves in our yellow submarine.” Many people of today's world no doubt share memories of the animated film, which tells the story of The Beatles taking a submarine to a far-off land. Nara himself surely heard this song and saw the film, so it is really not much of a stretch to see how Submarines in Girl may have, to a certain degree, stemmed from such experience.
Submarines in Girl was completed in 1991 — Nara's fourth year in Germany. By that time, his German had greatly improved, while his creative process had transitioned from earlier exploration and experimentation to a more established, self-confident style. Having matured as an artist, Nara was now able to create works that resonated and communicated with gallery-goers. This was confirmed in 1990 when he was invited to hold his first ever solo show at the Galerie d'Eendt in Amsterdam, which was highly praised. As a result, he was invited back to hold other exhibitions in 1992 and 1994. 1991 was therefore Nara's breakthrough year as an artist. The young girl who stares at us with a smile on her face in Submarines in Girl perhaps represents the artist's state of mind at that time. That year, he said goodbye to loneliness and disillusionment, embarking upon on a journey of unimpeded artistic creation not unlike the journey depicted in Yellow Submarine. It is almost as though he has found a new self — “a man who sailed to sea” — who is unafraid to brave the unknown and embrace the outer world with open arms. This is perhaps what Nara is attempting to convey through this work.

Price estimate:
HKD: 10,000,000 -15,000,000
USD: 1,273,900 - 1,910,800

Auction Result:
HKD : 12,225,000