Yoshitomo Nara

Yoshitomo Nara is best known for his naïve manga-style drawings, paintings and sculptures depicting images of innocent-looking children and animals with wry facial expressions. Your Dog (2002) is one of Nara’s trademark characters, created as a large fiberglass fucure. This larger-than-life sculpture is a seemingly innocent portrayal of a puppy, capturing a childhood sense of boredom and imagination. Often described as kawaii, which is the Japanese word for ‘cute’, Nara conveys a fragile world of youthful angst, loneliness and fantasy. He draws inspiration from sources as varied as American punk and rock ‘n’ roll music and childhood doodles, which reveal various emotional and psychological stresses in youth culture.