The Umbilical Cord of the Earth is the Moon, 1977

Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth © Luchita Hurtado
Photo: Jeff McLane/Hauser & Wirth

This exhibition was organized by the Serpentine Galleries (London), in association with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Generous support is provided by Elizabeth, Matthew, and Theodore Karatz and their families in honor of their mother, Janet Dreisen Rappaport. In-kind support is provided by Hauser & Wirth.

Nara produced this painting in June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The artist considers this work a “study” in search of a new artistic stylistic direction. The patchwork of color on the hair and clothes, as well the peach hue beneath the surface of the skin, reflect an unfinished quality akin to French modernist landscape painting. The blended colors that emanate from underneath her glassy eyes are also a departure from the linear U-shaped marks in the eyes that reflect fire and other objects in previous paintings.

Nara uses his signature “bandage” technique, which he began in the mid-1990s, where he builds the surface up with strips of cotton to create a textured background, which is mounted on FRP board. A girl with pointy bangs and green eyes is submerged so far underwater that only her eyes, nose, and forehead are visible. The rounded structure of the dish-shaped canvas adds to the illusion of depth—as if one is witnessing the drowning of a figure who seems to be in a simultaneous condition of anger and passivity.

While confronting the 2011 nuclear disaster, Nara made Miss Spring (2012), a portrait of a wide-eyed girl with a high forehead who stands against a cherry-blossom pink background and stares straight at the viewer, with prism-like teardrops glistening in her eyes. A symbol of hope, this portrait served as the cover image for Ryūichi Sakamoto’s No Nukes 2012: Guidebook for Our Future. Miss Spring was used as a powerful backdrop banner by the protest organizers during the demonstrations.

In 2005 Nara moved into a beautiful studio that overlooks the green pastures in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, where he would eventually open N’s YARD, a space that houses his artwork and collection. The paintings he began making in this period are layered in a vast array of palettes that create a kaleidoscopic effect, with many works featuring different colored eyes. The backgrounds are often dark and thickly layered, with iridescent colors that float in and out of sight, evoking the existential effects of Mark Rothko’s soft, saturated forms.

Starting in 2005, Nara’s singular portraits began to take a dramatic turn, each projecting a complex expression that combines sadness, anger, and serenity. In Missing in Action – Girl Meets Boy, fire from an atomic bomb explosion is reflected in one of the eyes of the figure, representing a memory of Hiroshima, where this work is housed. The political valence of this work on paper connects the fading memory of the previous generation who experienced the war with the younger generation of Japanese youth who can only experience this decisive moment indirectly.

Nara began creating portable installations of his paintings, drawings, and sculptures, which ranged from the three-part installation S.M.L. (2003) to the epic twenty-six-installation exhibition A to Z (2006), in 2003. These domestic environments culminated in My Drawing Room, a painted wooden architectural structure that recreates Nara’s studio space.