What Fuels Yoshitomo Nara’s Artistic Genius?
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mpressive in size and arresting in its visual power, Can't Wait 'til the Night Comes is the largest work known on canvas featuring Nara’s ‘children of the night’. Dazzling and beguiling, the painting is a superlative example from the artist’s pivotal point in his career, whereby his works undergo a stylistic shift. Larger than life, the protagonist with a mischievous smirk engulfs one’s peripheral vision. It is significantly larger than any other vampire motif that has been at auction. Nara’s nocturne child emerges from a luminous cream background, absorbings
the viewer into her sparkling eyes of different colours. Executed in 2012, the painting belongs to the most coveted of Nara's works, with four out of the top ten auction records of the artist being of his works from 2012 and beyond. The epit.mes
of Nara’s later works, this painting was exhibited at Nara’s first major museum solo show in the same year, “NARA Yoshitomo: a bit like you and me…” at Yokohama Museum of Art in Yokohama, Japan, after a period during which the artist had lost his desire to paint following the 2011 earthquake. It was also used as a poster image for the exhibition. The exhibition later travelled to the Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori, Japan, and the Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan.
In 1994, Yoshitomo Nara, with the help of gallerist Jörg Johnen, relocated to Cologne following his graduation from the esteemed Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. This move allowed the artist to begin working on large-scale canvases. Considered a highlight of the artist’s early career, it was living and working on the outskirts of Cologne that Nara’s highly solitary practice began to emerge. Stripping away superfluous detail from the background, Nara began to focus instead on the emotive potential of the lonely central figure and “the allegorical ability to express narrative through singular image endowed with powerful emotional appeal and enigmatic fragment that evoked associations' (M. Matsui, ‘A Child in the White Field: Yoshitomo Nara as a Great “Minor Artist”’, Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works, Paintings, Sculptures, Editions, Photographs, Vol. 1, Tokyo 2011, p. 334).
Nara’s interests in creatures of the nocturnal, such as cats and vampires, began as early as his Cologne days (1993-1999). These characteristics are often depicted with fangs and/or eyes of entrancing design, evoking living beings with enhanced night vision. Nara revisits this theme repeatedly throughout his career. An intimate part of his creative process, Nara would work “alone in his studio, usually late at night, with punk rock screaming from speakers”, and rising only well into the mature hours of the day. (Kristin Chambers, Nothing Ever Happens, Cleveland 2004. p.26). Parallels are undoubtedly evident between the Artist and the vampire protagonist of Can't Wait 'til the Night Comes; a lonesome nocturnal existence characterises this mythical yet fearsome figure.
Executed in 2012, Can't Wait 'til the Night Comes is a quintessential example from a distinctive body of work that Nara began in the same year, after his return to the studio in April following the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011. 2012 was a significant year for the artist, coming to terms with the sheer devastation of the earthquake and resulting tsunami that left more than 450,000 people homeless and caused more than 18,000 people to lose their lives.
Deeply connected to the northeastern part of Japan, which was hit worst by the earthquake, the natural disaster triggered a significant change in his artistic practice and a shift in his aesthetic, as seen in Can't Wait 'til the Night Comes. After an initial period of reflection and engagement with local communities worst hit by the disaster, Nara experienced what Yeewan Koon describes as “a fresh surge of creative energy” (Yeewan Koon, Yoshitomo Nara, London, 2020, p. 253). Executed the year after his return to the studio, Can't Wait 'til the Night Comes is demonstrative of this shift in the artist’s visual language, softening the once menacing expressions of his little girls, depicting his figures from the bust upwards, expanding his colour palette and experimenting with a shimmering translucency through more meditative layering.
Nara’s treatment of his subject’s eyes changed around 2005, becoming more realistic through the deft interplay of light and shadow. The artist commented:
“They say human eyes are the mirror of the soul, and I used to draw them too carelessly. Say, to express the anger, I just drew some triangular eyes. I drew obviously-angry eyes, projected my anger there, and somehow released my pent-up emotions. [Afterwards] I became more interested in expressing complex feelings in a more complex way.”
While each eye is rendered in a different variety of tonal hues—one a biscuit-fired red, the other an olive green—together, they hint at the twilight transformation of our nocturne protagonist as the night approaches.
Nara, in the foreword of the exhibition “NARA Yoshitomo: a bit like you and me…” in which the present work was featured, elaborates explicitly on the transition of the nature of his works. They are no longer his self-portraits but portraits through which the viewer can experience introspective self-projection. The exhibition marks a pivotal transition in the artist’s painterly style, where his subjects assume the form of large-scale bust portraiture set against a minimalist, monochromatic background. The brushworks and colours soften, while the enhanced focus on the subject’s expression puts greater emphasis on the human psyche, as exemplified by the present work. Nara’s process is discernibly more meditative and introspective in "Can't Wait 'til the Night Comes" than in his earlier works. It took him nearly a year to complete this painting, achieving a shimmering translucency through his deft layering of acrylic paint.
Another reason behind the lengthy painterly process was the presence of an original composition underneath, which the Artist decided to paint over. The original composition depicted a smirking child holding a two-leafed sprout, a motif recurrent in Nara’s oeuvre and one that has been revisited frequently after the devastating Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in 2011. By then, the sprout.mes ant a lot more than just a symbol of peace, as he commented:
"How many children have I depicted holding a futaba sprout...? I don't think many people have noticed that the nuclear plant in Fukushima is located in a place called Futaba."
The drastic change in subject matter, urging Nara to paint over incomplete work, suggests a profound shift in the Artist's thought process.
Arguably Japan’s most internationally acclaimed painter working today with a global collects or base, Yoshitomo Nara has captivated the imaginations of collects ors and critics around the world, achieving institutional recognition. Test.mes nt to the importance of the artist, Nara has recently been honoured with the most extensive retrospective in Europe, held at the Hayward Gallery in London, preceded by the critically acclaimed retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which later travelled to the Yuz Museum in Shanghai.
Recent Auction Results of Large Scale Yoshitomo Nara Works on Canvas
近年奈良美智大型畫布上拍作品
《等不及夜幕降臨》尺幅宏大，是奈良「夜之子」系列中已知的最大幅畫布作品，畫面震撼視覺和心魄，光芒閃耀，迷人別致，堪為奈良在藝術生涯的關鍵時期創作的巔峰之作，當時他的畫風正經歷重大變化。畫中主角引人注目，臉上掛著俏皮的壞笑，完全佔據觀眾視野。本作的尺寸遠大於拍場上任何以吸血鬼為主題的畫作。奈良筆下的夜之子從發光的乳白色背景浮現，色彩不一的雙眸閃閃發亮，彷彿要把觀眾攝入其中。本作成於2012年，當屬奈良最受追捧的作品，他的十大拍賣紀錄中，有四個是由創作於2012年或以後的作品締造。作為奈良近年的精彩佳作，本作在創作當年就於日本橫濱美術館為奈良舉行的首場博物館級個展〈NARA Yoshitomo: a bit like you and me… 〉展出，此前他因為2011年東日本大地震而失去繪畫意欲，而本作也獲展覽選用為宣傳海報。其後，這場展覽巡迴至青森縣立美術館和熊本市立現代美術館展出。
1994年，奈良從杜塞爾多夫藝術學院畢業後，在畫廊主約爾格・約能協助下，搬到科隆居住，他因而開始創作大尺幅的畫布作品。他在科隆郊區生活和工作的孤寂歲月中，逐漸培養出特立獨行的創作方式，外界視之為奈良早年藝術生涯的一個重要時期。此時，他將背景中多餘的細節剝離，更專注於呈現畫中主角的情感，並以作品呈表達「有力的情感訴求和讓人浮想聯翩的神秘碎片，體現出他優秀的繪畫敘事能力」（松井碧，〈白境之子：偉大的「小」藝術家——奈良美智〉，《奈良美智作品全集：油畫、雕塑、限量作品、攝影》，第1冊，東京，2011年，頁334）。
奈良最早對貓和吸血鬼等夜行生物感興趣的時間，可追溯至旅居科隆的時期（1993–1999）。他筆下的吸血鬼通常都擁有尖牙和深邃迷離的眼眸，讓人聯想到夜間視力一流的生物，並在藝術生涯中反覆利用這一主題創作。晚上屬於他非常個人的創作時刻，他「習慣深夜獨留在工作室，沉浸在揚聲器響起的龐克搖滾音樂裡」，睡至白天的正午時分才起床（克莉絲汀・錢伯斯，《沒大事發生》，克里夫蘭，2004年，頁26）。毫無疑問，奈良與《等不及夜幕降臨》中的吸血鬼有一定的相似性，他就像駭人的神秘生物一樣，在黑夜中孤身一人。
奈良與作為重災區的日本東北部淵源深厚，自然災害觸發了他在藝術創作和審美哲學上出現重大變化，這種變化從《等不及夜幕降臨》當中可以看到。奈良接觸過受災最嚴重的社區，並初步反思之後，經歷了藝評者官綺雲所描述的「一股新的創造動力」（官綺雲，《奈良美智》，倫敦，2020年，頁253）。他在回到畫室後的第二年繪畫本作，從中可見他在此一時間視覺語言的轉變。他筆下總是目露凶光的小女孩形象變得比較柔和平靜；此外，他在此期間開始創作半身像，又採用更豐富的色調，耐心地逐層營造畫面閃爍的半透明感。
奈良對人物眼睛的描繪在2005年左右開始變化，通過巧妙的光影處理成就更寫實的手法。他曾表示：
「有人說眼睛是靈魂的鏡子，我以前太粗心了。例如說，為了表達憤怒，我就把眼睛畫成三角形。我筆下的眼睛帶著明顯的憤怒，我把憤怒投射進去，不知怎的釋放了壓抑著的情緒。 [後來]我比較傾向以更複雜的方式表達複雜的感受。」
雖然畫中人雙眼各自呈現不同色調——一隻是像素燒陶坯的暖紅色，另一隻是橄欖綠——但當夜幕低垂，不同顏色的眼睛表示這位屬於夜晚的主角正在暮色中悄然蛻變。
奈良在展覽圖錄〈NARA Yoshitomo: a bit like you and me… 〉的序言中，明確闡述自己的作品已從本質上改變，所創作的不再是自畫像，而是觀眾可以從中感受內省和自我投射的肖像畫。這場展覽標誌著奈良在繪畫風格上的重大轉折，他以尺幅巨大的半身像呈現創作主題，將人物置於簡約的單色背景前，所用筆觸和色彩趨向柔和，但正如本作所見，他更集中展現人物的表情，強調如何探索人類的心靈。奈良創作《等不及夜幕降臨》的過程明顯比早期作品更加內省，奈良花了接近一年的時間才完成本作，因為同一幅畫布上原本繪有主題截然不同的未完成作品，必須在其上費耗心力地逐層疊加彩色底漆，覆蓋原有構圖，再以靈巧的畫法逐層塗上壓克力彩，才能夠凝造出現成作品閃爍灼亮的半透明效果。那幅被覆蓋的原圖描繪一個帶著壞笑、手持雙葉芽苗的小孩，這個意象不僅是奈良的創作中反覆出現的圖樣，還在2011年東日本大地震引發嚴重災難後，成為他多次演繹的主題。那原本象徵著和平的嫩芽在震災後多了一重意義——福島核電廠址之一的『雙葉』町。正如奈良所言：
「我畫了多少個手持雙葉芽苗的孩子⋯⋯？我想沒多少人注意到福島核電廠的所在地名字就是雙葉。」
故此，奈良美智不惜更改前作，重新規劃至本作的舉動，似乎反映了他在核事故後更深邃的創作思路。
奈良美智可說是當今國際聲譽最隆盛的日本畫家，他的作品獲得世界各地藏家評家和藝青睞，而且備受博物館和藝術機構推崇。繼早前洛杉磯縣藝術博物館為奈良舉辦的回顧展大獲好評，並巡迴至上海余德耀美術館展出後，奈良最近在倫敦海沃美術館舉行至今在歐洲規模最盛大的巡迴回顧展，可見他在藝壇上的非凡地位。