Care for a Snarky Comment? An Examination of the 'Little Girl' in Yoshitomo Nara's Artworks

In the summer of 2010, my father took me for the very first time to the Hong Kong World’s Fair in Wan Chai. I must have visited numerous exhibitions as a child, even showcased some of my work early on, but this was the very first exhibition I truly remember to this day, the one that had shaped my love for the arts and possibly provided the base for my fire studies in the art historical world.

Hula Hula Dancing, 1998

Among the many artworks that linger in my memory to this day, a particular selection of works by a Japanese artist named Yoshitomo Nara has found its place in my heart and its permanent home in my art historical origin story to the greatest capacity.

In the late-80s to 90s, Nara began his studies in Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany. There, as noted by Hyunsun Tae, he was suddenly inundated with exposure to varying cultures and began to feel out of place. This melancholia and frustration were what sparked this series of works showcasing the wide-eyed confrontational little girl who embodies the entire canvas against a plain background.

Encountering his work in greater detail, I began to inquire about the repetition of the girl as the subject, and it springs to mind the question of what made Nara choose to depict this particular gender. What were his motives, and what is the importance of the girl? Why is she depicted primarily from her bust and even alongside varying phrases? What do her expressions entail, and how do they evoke a reaction? What is it about his work in particular that drew me towards them?

Well, putting sentimentality and nostalgia aside, this work offers a unique framework, a study toward the basis of human morality. No longer a child, I return my gaze toward these works with a new mindset. I see thought-provoking remarks and ubiquitous gazes that are enshrouded in a blanket of psychological interiority. I see messages that are calling for answers. They are answers that could be answered through a voyage into older schools of thought, and the simple task of slow-looking that works conjures a welcomed rapidity in our visual analyses. The artworks of these little girls offer an awakening take on human morality, most apparent in their rugged sketchy aesthetics and kawaii aesthetics in the accompaniment of Nara's caption.

Kuraya attributes his foray into the subject to his childhood in the city of Hirosaki, where he had attended and played within a school repurposed from army barracks housing an old ammunition depot more than a decade after the war (Mika Kuraya, "The Figure, the Ground, and the War: Yoshimoto Nara's Paintings," 150-1). This remark calls forth Tae's observation which associates Nara's drawings with rough sketches. His style is said to offer insight into his "initial, pure artistic will" that likens to a sketch done for oneself as a hobby, done when one obtains an inspirational spark (Hyunsun Tae, "Let's Make It Together!," 17). This statement is evident in a number of his works. Take Harmless Kitty, 1994 as an example. Outlines in the artwork are minimal and most evident around the face and around the duck on which the child sits. The outlines are paired with the blurry lines that surround the headdress or the ears atop the child's onesie. Colors blend with one another, the inner ears identified in honeycomb or mustard yellow mix with the purplish-brown of the rest of the child's ensemble. Marks echoing the latter's colour are scattered over the child's forehead and cheeks. The eyes are easily placed through their almond-shape, its iris and pupil dotted in a blocky green and purple-brown. The nose is placeable through the two dark dots between the eyes, and the bold red line below. Aside from the duck, the composition of the child appears to have been tremendously simple in execution, and in turn, adds to the approachability of his works. Moreover, this approachability is extended once considering the childlike qualities of this sketchiness. To see this as child-like, we see this work as delicate, we see ourselves as children creating artworks like Nara's, and we then empathise with the little girls and their messages.

Harmless Kitty, 1994

In the catalog for Nara's installation Torre de Málaga, Tae posits that Nara's choice to portray children relates to his desire to look inward into his childhood during his time in Germany and his sentiments of being excluded and alone. This is verified through Nara's own remark: "Seeing the children or animals as my other self, it signified me leaving the familiar confines of Japan and liberating myself from my surroundings"( Tae, 15). It augments clarification into the choice of depicting children. Children represent a time of innocence and honesty--of pure love, hope, and the most developmental stages in one's life. However, scholars don't quite delve into the gendered aspect of the subject. Why little girls, and why are they tied to such stark messages and expressions?

Often times, the girl is seen as weak and in greater need of protection. It is the idea that girls are less likely to cause trouble and are more likely to pay attention to adults’ hopes or are more sensible to expectations that makes them more ideal. (Kaarina Määttä and Satu Uusiautti, "Nine Contradictory Observations About Girls’ and Boys’ Upbringing and Education – The Strength-Based Approach as the Way to Eliminate the Gender Gap," 2-3). This study alludes to a more submissive, yet attentive quality. Girls are in need of protection, therefore, whatever they say or need must be taken to account so that they could be safe and unharmed.

Though Nara's work is extensive, and the little girl archetypes expansive, the expressions seem to gather into a simple four types: furious, serene, mischievous and despairing. To analyse the effect of each of these types, I will refer to his works, Princess of Snooze, My Bear, Hula Hula Dancing, and ...Words Mean Nothing at All.

Prior to my examination, it is important to note that Nara does not limit his subjects to little girls. He does in fact depict adults and animals, such as his Pale Mountain Dog from 2000. Equally important, is the consideration of Nara's mediums and scale. Moreover, I acknowledge that these works as creations from varying years, which insites the issue of change in purpose and subject. However, for the sake of the article length, I will focus primarily on the little girl from recognition of this subject's heightened recurrence in comparison with his other themes. Therefore, I would like to argue the main point that these emotions present the many different emotions us adults feel once we enter new environments.

The former exhibits a little girl with a curved bob lying against this off-white backdrop with her arms laid out in an ever relaxed manner. Her eyes are shut in the cartoonish style that often plays into a happily-relaxed demeanor while her tongue sticks out in a playful way. The second artwork showcases a centered wide-eyed little girl with pursed lips guarding her flimsy teddy bear to her left. The third here presents a little girl with raised arms dressed in a biconvex skirt. Absent of brows, like the two others, her lowered eyes allude to a mischievous expression all the more confirmed by the smile on her lips. The first little girl fulfils the archetype of the quirky, playful one--the child who loves to play around and is constantly happy. The naive child in us who absorbs the world in a Lockean light which pushes the notion of a human born good with a need to be nurtured. The second little girl represents the child who is learning to share, about possession and material version of affection and how to maneuver it. Her lips are slightly downturned and she is guarded herself. The third, is an expansion of the first child. She is still purposefully playful, but it carries a different tone. The fourth child, here likens more to the aforementioned furious child. Her eyes look away in what we can consider as the "side-eye." She keeps her arms close to her body, her shoulders are raised, and her lips are pursed. Like the second girl, she is guarded, but here with a more ardent intent aided by the caption positioned above her head. She appears to dissent whatever words directed at her.

These little girls possess an array of emotions that we as children, even as adults feel in an array of situations. We can be playful, furious, despairing and content souls. Their cartoonish nature renders their appearance kawaii, or cute in Japanese. I see these little girls and am not frightened by their features as they compositions are simple. They carry traits of the stereotypically "cute" look. Wide-eyed with abstract shapes and lines that make up the other features. The absence of details, not only makes Nara's work appear child-like, it makes his work lighthearted. However, the choice to present a little girl makes sense as we consider the diversity of these portrayals. The outcome of our empathy is augmented as the level of their neediness and our need to protect them is innately uncovered within us.

Returning to the fourth image, ...Words Mean Nothing at All, we move on to the next point which delves into the effect of Nara's captioning, whether in the artwork itself or in the title.

Here, we move forth to the more serious aspect of Nara's work which is its socio-political quality. To define what this means in Nara's context is more complicated as this article is limited to the secondary sources addressing Nara's work. Acknowledged beforehand, Nara had grown up in an environment of harsh history. To have played around environments filled with traces of an unpleasant past in the form of war, one could assume Nara would have grown accustomed, or at least immune to conflict, which served as a predecessor to his later conflicts in Germany. He may have already developed the necessary coping mechanisms to any situation. This adaptation is reflected is most in his captioned works.

As an adult in the 80s and 90s up to the 2000s, facing new forms of conflict, whether personal or global, Nara, like anyone living in those decades, would have conjured a reaction. To see which of his artworks respond to which particular conflicts would require Nara's own opinion, something which this article is unable to acquire at this moment. However, to consider his work in a more general-audience-centric lens, in particular, my own as a twenty-something living in the Twenty-First-Century, there is much to say regarding the confrontational impact his work has on our self-reflections and those we carry toward the outside world.

To argue for its social and political quality, I ask us to refer to the receptive trait of his works, especially as a Twenty-First-Century audience and the conflicts we currently face. I am referring broadly to ongoing issues with poverty, racism, feminism, democracy, the environment, education, etc.

So, when I apply slow-looking to ...Words Mean Nothing at All, I resort to an introspective dialogue of how I see the world before me. I imagine the frustration I feel when a promise goes unanswered--political or personal. As I zoom into the details of the little girl (which is rendered easier due to the solid-coloured background), I see a little girl who embodies that same reaction, (and amusingly due to its fictional nature), I am reassured that I am not alone. The same reaction finds itself in Nara's Let's Move On!. The message is simple. The little girl raises her left arm in the air in a motion that appears familiar in our subconscious--a universal message (Rosie the Riveter, the Korean 'fighting,' or the meme of the little bow with his right fist raised toward the foreground) that cries for hope and never giving up. I read these remarks and see the little girl's gesture and am easily reminded that whatever I may be enduring, life's complexity is a fact and all we can do is live on.

The titles for the four previous works that do not carry captions on the canvas, work slightly differently. Here the titles, provide us with a narrative, and attribute to these little girls an identity that is, to us, relatable. As children, or even as adults, we love to dance, to siesta, and we have loved material possessions. Nara's messages aid us, just as creating these artworks aiding him to feel included, to feel heard-- to motivate us no matter what quagmire awaits us--just like Nara's sudden exposure to an unknown world.

Let's Move On!

Nara's little girls ressemble us. They also reassure us and humor us. The little girls reminds us hows even the most simple, the minimal can conjure a gargantuan effect in us. Just as art works best interdisciplinarily, Nara's works, considered, even if unintentionally, provided a sort of "holy-trinity" where the little girl, with the unique phrases and simple composition somehow compliment each other so perfectly. And the hidden recipe in Nara's work was simply the audience's subjective experience. Perhaps, the little girl in me knew this was what art could do, and it ultimately led me toward this passion that I carry to this day toward the history of art! They comfort the ever-reflective solitary traveler in us as we pilgrimage around the unknown world.

Sources:

Määttä, Kaarina, and Uusiautti, Satu. "Nine Contradictory Observations About Girls’ and Boys’ Upbringing and Education – The Strength-Based Approach as the Way to Eliminate the Gender Gap." Frontiers in Education, vol. 5, 2020, p. 1-9.

Nara, Yoshitomo. Yoshitomo Nara + Graf: Torre de Málaga. CAC Málaga, 2008.

Nara, Yoshitomo. Yoshitomo Nara: Self-Selected Works: Paintings. Seigensha, 2015.