Sayon サヨン（莎詠）

A girl glares at us from within a white background. The accusatory look she holds in her eyes, as if she has been deeply hurt, piques the viewer's conscience. While alone and hurt, however, she stands ready to fight back. She does not lose hope for the future; to the contrary, she seems filled all the more with a will to live. Yoshitomo Nara uses flat expression in depicting little girls and dogs and other such motifs, in paintings and three-dimensional works. The little girls appearing in his works are in fact his own self-portrait, he has said. After graduating from a Japanese art college, Nara went to Germany and lived and worked there for twelve years. His lonely existence in a country where he knew no one and could not freely communicate became a source of energy for producing art, and thus were born the many little girls who glare at viewers with piercing looks. Then, the rock music-inspired messages sometimes appearing in his works encourage the artist himself, while offering a message of encouragement to the viewer of the work. Since returning to Japan and joining up with the creative design unit, graf, Nara has often chosen to create with other people around him instead of working alone. An example is the hut-like installations he creates from discarded lumber, inside of which he displays various art works. The facial expressions of his girls, which seem to change along with changes in his life and environment, perhaps let us glimpse his own interior moods.