Superflat Art

The Lonesome Puppy

Superflat artist Yoshitomo Nara has produced a children's book based on his famous dog and girl motifs.

The books publicity blurb is:

The Lonesome Puppy -- In his first book for children, renowned artist Yoshitomo Nara tells the charming story of a puppy so large that no one notices him—until a determined little girl climbs high enough to meet him and become his friend. A sweet tale from an artist for whom childhood holds a magical appeal, The Lonesome Puppy is sure to delight young readers and Nara fans of all ages.

Yoshitomo Nara is one of the most popular and influential contemporary artists in Japan, whose work—often featuring little girls and puppies—has attracted a worldwide following. This is his first book for children. He lives in Tochigi, Japan.

There are some extracts available and you can buy it from Amazon

Maid Cafe Opens in California

A Maid Cafe is a Japanese anime inspired role playing cafe, where waitresses are dressed as a “maid” and treat you as a “master”. Maids will greet, “Welcome home, my master” at the door, pour tea for you, and play card game with you. One has just opened in America, very possibly the first on that side of the Pacific, with a very familiar looking dog.

Source: Maid Cafe opens in Culver City, CA

About Yoshitomo Nara

Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens - Institute of Contemporary Art

The prolific and soft-spoken Nara is internationally recognized for his neo-pop style paintings and sculptures that feature big-eyed, alternately sad, mischievous, or even malevolent children. Born in 1959, Nara was raised during an era in Japan defined by economic re-development and working families. Like many Japanese children of this era, Nara was a "latch-key kid" who spent time out of school with only his imagination and pets for company. "My art represents my childhood experiences. It is not influenced by Japanese pop culture. I played with sheep, cats and dogs when I came home from school," says Nara.

Although some draw parallels to manga, the popular Japanese comic-strip form, with its child heroes and grim adult backdrops, Nara's children stand apart and alone with their direct gazes and acid grins that hint at much more adult states like fear, anxiety, and vengefulness, if not outright psychosis. In contrast, his tender and friendly dogs offer absolution and tranquility.

Yoshitomo Nara by Kara Besher

In the drawings, kiddies are engaging in innocuous solo activities: holding a flag, playing in a box, sitting on a potty, holding a book, standing in a puddle. But sometimes they are brandishing sharp little implements--knives and saws. Nara captures these scenes in a moment of stillness.

The children look up at the viewer with what seems to be a air of wariness. Or is it complicity? Do those heavy eyelids indicate post- or pre-nappy time, or do they embody a jaded cynicism, incongruent with the insouciance of childhood? Each work is an emotional trigger which has different effects on different viewers.

Yoshitomo Nara: Nothing Ever Happens

Tokyo-based artist Yoshitomo Nara creates deceptively simple paintings, sculptures, and drawings that invite us to reconnect with the defiant spirit that comes with youthful optimism and the belief that we may someday be able to change the world. Like the punk rock music that inspires him, Nara's work emerges out of the despair of feeling invisible in a world where it seems like "nothing ever happens." Exploring Nara's realm and its inhabitants can be as bewildering and delightful as taking one of Alice's trips through Wonderland. His characters are devilish, fairy-tale strange, and not afraid to embrace the experiences of anxiety, fear, and escape into fantasy that define human existence at any age.

Yoshitomo Nara - Stephen Friedman

Stylistically, Nara's work is a complex cocktail of sources and inspirations. He studied in Japan and Germany, which perhaps prompted a hybridization of Eastern and Western influences. Nara has a passion for British and American-born music genres, in particular punk and rock 'n' roll. As well as having the spontaneous feel of a classroom doodle, his work references children’s publications and the deep psychological questions they raise.

Little Triggers

TO ADULTS, childhood seems like an idyllic existence free from worry and care, but to children, nothing happens fast enough. Trapped in a continual state of restless waiting, they squirm furtively at the dinner table or kick the back of your movie seat. Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara's depictions of precocious children and benevolent dogs present childhood as a paradox of perfection and boredom. Suspended in a state of arrested development, his figures are caught somewhere between nostalgic innocence and youthful impatience.

Percival Press

Arguably one of the most enthralling of this generation of Japanese contemporary artists, Yoshitomo Nara distinctively transcends a national style to offer a universal and touching psychological narrative of childhood--a time when family pets were huge and frightening, when other kids were equally overwhelming and alien, and when the world seemed as awe-inspiring, bizarre, and foreign as Alice's trips through Wonderland. Featuring an impish cast of wide-eyed and devilish children and their larger-than-life childhood pets, Nara's works highlight the manic fear, anxiety, simplicity, fantasy, and escape that defines childhood and leaves its remnants on the adult psyche.

I Think Therefore I Am A Dog

I Think Therefore I Am A Dog - Yoshitomo Nara

The Longest Night

The Longest Night - Yoshitomo Nara

Your Dog

Your Dog - Yoshitomo Nara

My Sweet Dog

My Sweet Dog - Yoshitomo Nara

Yoshitomo Nara Clock

This unique flip clock has one of 84 original drawings, by Yoshitomo Nara, for each hour and each minute. Watch as time passes and new images are revealed. - My Plastic Heart

Yoshitomo Nara Clock - Yoshitomo Nara

Too Young To Die

The image is from a painting entitled 'Too Young To Die' which was included in an exhibition called 'I Don't Mind, If You Forget Me' at the Yokohama Museum of Art in September 2001. At 10 inches in diameter, this ashtray can double as a dish! - My Plastic Heart

Too Young To Die - Yoshitomo Nara

Cup Pup

"The charming PupCup™ whirls, twirls and spins about to the delight of all it passes. Combining the iconic images of Yoshitomo Nara's Lonesome Puppy (Dog From Your Childhood) and The Cup Kids, the PupCup™ head and body rotate in opposites directions creating a remarkable kinetic object. Requires two AA batteries. - My Plastic Heart

Cup Pup - Yoshitomo Nara