Midnight Tears

Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959, Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, Japan) is one of the most celebrated Japanese artists from the second half of the 20th century. His images of children, at times menacing, challenging, and defiant, or else melancholic and uncertain, have become beloved icons and can often be seen in demonstrations and protests, in line with the artist’s activism and commitment to serious issues. Nara makes art with traditional methods, inspired by his childhood and his personal history, under the influence of music, literature and film, nature, and the history of both European and Japanese art.

Born in 1959 in suburban Hirosaki, in northern Japan, Nara grew up during the so-called Japanese economic miracle, spending long hours on his own, in contact with nature and surrounded by animals, listening to a radio he had built himself that was to expand his universe.