Yoshitomo Nara is a Japanese artist. He lives and works in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, though his artwork has been exhibited worldwide. Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions since 1984. His art work has been housed at the MoMA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). His most well-known and repeated subjects are "big-headed girls" with piercing eyes, who one Nara scholar describes as having "childlike expressions [that] resonate with adult emotions, [their] embodiment of kawaii (cuteness) carries a dark humor, and any explicit cultural references are intertwined with personal memories."
Aya Takanois a Japanese painter, Superflat artist, manga artist, and science fiction essayist. Takano's art stands as a testament to the harmonious fusion of cultural influences, traversing the realms of Superflat and Pop art while creating an indelible mark on the contemporary art world. Through her remarkable talent and boundless imagination, she continues to delight audiences and reshape the limits of artistic expression.
Chiho Aoshima is a contemporary Japanese artist who works in a Pop Art style. A member of Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki Collective, she is one of Japan’s most popular and successful artists working today. She works with a range of media including digital prints, animation, sculpture, murals, ceramics and painting. Her art is filled with strange, surreal, and fantastical imagery that relates as much to Japanese folklore and tradition to the modern worlds of kawaii, manga and anime. While they might look decorative or cute from afar, her artworks address serious issues about human psychology and our place in the post-industrial world.
Syozo Taniguchi works in illustration and video, in a style that clearly takes it lead from Nara’s legacy. The tales of companionship and adventure played out in his animations are a millennial investigation of ideas about adolescence and identity that Nara also explores. Taniguchi’s work, like the others in this exhibition, is seen in London for the first time.
