In Nara’s earliest works made at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, allegories of good and evil collapse, and innocence becomes one with destruction itself. Compositions are divided in half or in quadrants, and figures with elongated heads wear halos, with their hands transforming into flames or knives. In People on the Cloud, a horizon line splits the composition—animals, people, and hybrid figures crawl along the outer edges of the frame. Nara masterfully situates the figures between symbolic and physical planes of the piece. Each figure is surrounded by anxiety and sadness, with gazes that verge on imminent violence.