Acrylic on paper

32 x 24 cm. x 2 12 5/8 x 9 1/2 in. x 2

Titled in English on bottom left, signed in Japanese and dated on bottom right of each piece

LITERATURE
2011, Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works 1984-2010, Volume 2: Works on Paper, Bijutsu Publishing House, Tokyo, p. 91
PROVENANCE
Galerie Van Dieten-d'Eendt, Amsterdam
Private Collection, Netherland
23 Jun 2006, Christie's London Spring Auctions, Lot 300
Private Collection, Europe
Private Collection, Asia

I Realize, I am not Alone
The Debut of Yoshitomo Nara's Iconic Element in 1990s

Yoshitomo Nara, Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami are lauded as the iconic trio of Japanese contemporary art. The latter two impress the world with dots and factory-produced art respectively, while Nara makes his conquest through the striking resonance with viewers. His artworks contain the power that transcends geography, gender and age. He lets loose of his imagination and connects with a highly heterogenous following with his international artistic language that is yet not short of ethnic elements.

After receiving his M.F.A. from Aichi Prefectural University of Art in 1987, Nara headed to Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany the following year to study under the mentorship of the neo-expressionist painter A.R. Penck. The 12-year stint has empowered him with an on-point understanding of western art media, techniques and philosophy. His creation style and philosophy also came into shape over that period. He is adept at using minimalist outline and doodle-like strokes to express his inner feelings marked with his life experience and broader cultural elements. The full-of-fun “Nara Land” has won wide recognition in the global art world. After 2010, Nara received the award from the International Center in New York and Art Encouragement Prize from Japan's Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. His paintings are in the collection of a host of leading institutions, including MoMA, Centre National des Arts Plastiques, and the British Museum. The sweet yet sinister characters in his work, billed as icons of pop art, make him a well-received artist in the market of Asian contemporary art. One of his paintings was sold at the record-smashing price of HK$191 million in the fall auction last year. Nara was thus made the most expensive Japanese contemporary artist.

How an Icon is Made

“At the age 28, I was in Germany where I seemed to transcend time and space to begin a conversation with my 8-year-old self in Aomori…It reminded me of who I was and helped me take a new look at myself.”
——Yoshitomo Nara

Abandoned Puppy, Waiting (Diptych) on sale are a typical embodiment of his loneliness in the early 1990s and his art experiments in Germany. The two paintings feature the trademark composition of the artist and two childlike characters. The two kids serve as the prototype of his future series Sleepless Night and Night Walker and pave the way for his style evolvement in later stages.

In the twin paintings, Nara portrayed two children in brown dog costume sitting face to face. One stays in a paper box looking around as if to fend off the concerned glances with his disdainful look. Her mate, in contrast, bends over to the ground with her head up waiting for caring attention. The vintage tone may remind the viewer of a letter back in their childhood, letting out the artist's resentful yet somewhat nostalgic feelings. The girl in Abandoned Puppy takes a well-behaved posture that is in stark contrast with her vigilant look, which shows her polarizing mindset. The dog costume matches the style of his Sleepless Night series afterwards. Her squint, in line with the over-exaggerated characters in Ukiyo-e art, qualifies as an example of his continuation of Japanese traditional art.

The Secret of Carton

In 1999, Nara published a children's book Lonesome Puppy, portraying the puppy as a lifelong playmate of the little girl. Abandoned Puppy finished in 1996 is already imbued with such longing for love and company. The girl is dressed in costume to get more intimate with her animal friends, which resonates with everyone who has a naughty and innocent child that lingers inside dying for attention and care. She squats down in the box as if it was a castle tucked away in a small corner of the big world. As a variant of the wooden cabin in Nara's artworks in the 1980s, the carton made its debut in Untitled in a 1992 sketchbook and has frequently appeared in his multi-media work since 1994, such as I'm OK. Are you? (1994) and Untitled (1995). It has become the most common element in Nara's portfolio ever since. Abandoned Puppy does not highlight the sorrow of an abandoned child but rather focuses on individual mental state to share Nara's observations of social reality.

In 1995, Nara set up his studio in Cologne to kick off his independent creation journey. The sharp-sighted girl in Abandoned Puppy is an embodiment of the artist's courage and expectations towards the future. This theme is further illustrated in Waiting, in which a girl is groping forward with her eyes closed in expectation of unexpected warmth. This is also the most real profile of Nara's mentality in his early career. As he wrote in a poem, “I slowly walk and swim forward. I don't know if I can reach anything, but I will never stop.”

Minimalist yet Meaningful

“What they call 'abstract' is the most realistic, because what is real is not represented by external form but by the idea behind it, the essence of things.”
——Brancusi, British sculptor

In the pair paintings, Nara follows a minimalist composition and sketches the contours of the two girls roughly in black lines. They are one of the very few pieces that show the full body of the subjects. The sketchy lines are teeming with children's simplicity while preserving the vigorousness of woodblock printing. Nara draws inspirations from Brancusi and simplifies the physique into abstract geometric forms: the cone-shaped body is topped by with a big round head. The hands, feet, ears and eyes are in distorted ellipses. The geometric touches exhibit the spirit of cubism, and the overall presentation is in line with Cézanne's advocacy for modern art. Different from the refined characters in his later paintings, the two girls give the viewer a feast of the artist's creation journey behind the scenes. The artist intentionally leaves the traces of him layering up analogous colors. Such low saturated colors are typical of Nara's palette and traditional Japanese paintings. The color overlap also helps get his sophisticated feelings across. The blurry background enables people with different identities from different cultural background to project their thoughts onto the subjects. On top of the rich texture and warm tone, the two paintings are juxtaposed with each other as if the girls are in a conversation. It also transports the artist back to his childhood when he saw his little him and questioned himself: after all this time, can I still face myself with a clear conscience?

Nara gives viewers a break from the defense mode in the reality. Without the protective mask, their unruliness, loneliness and vulnerability are allowed free rein. The girl who turns around and throws you a crooked smile is just like your alternative self in the world. His paintings work the magic of awakening everyone's individuality and reminding us that we are not alone.

Price estimate:
HKD: 2,200,000 – 3,200,000
USD: 283,900 – 412,900

Auction Result:
HKD: 4,484,000