Yoshitomo Nara exhibition: First Solo UK exhibition of the Japanese artist

When I arrived at the Hayward Gallery for Yoshitomo Nara’s long-awaited UK survey, I expected a blast of cute pop art. What I got instead was something much stranger, deeper, and more unsettling. Spread across more than 150 works—paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and even a reconstructed wooden hut—the exhibition reveals the full range of Nara’s practice, spanning four decades of restless experimentation.

The first gallery felt like walking into a confrontation. Everywhere I turned, the “Nara” character stared back at me. Sometimes she was painted with big, glossy eyes; other times her face hardened into a glare so sharp it felt like a warning. Though the figure is usually depicted as a child, she never feels childlike. She smokes, she scowls, she clutches a knife behind her back. She dares you to dismiss her as “cute”—only to remind you that innocence and anger often live side by side.

Nara has said that this character isn’t a self-portrait but a kind of emotional mirror. Standing in front of her, I realised how true that felt. Depending on my own mood, her eyes seemed playful, resentful, even heartbreakingly lonely. In one drawing she looked like a brat; in another, a survivor. I caught myself leaning in, as if she might whisper something only I could hear.

The centrepiece for me was the “Drawing Room,” a wooden hut rebuilt inside the gallery. Peering through its windows, I saw sketches scattered across the desk, scribbled notes pinned to the wall, and vinyl records stacked in the corner. It felt as if I had wandered into Nara’s private sanctuary, where punk music and solitude blend into creativity. For a moment, the gallery dissolved, and I was just standing inside his head.

Later rooms softened in tone. After Fukushima, Nara’s work shifted—his characters became quieter, their eyes more contemplative than confrontational. I lingered in front of one small portrait of a girl with downcast eyes, realising how much grief and tenderness could be held in such a simple form. That tension between rebellion and vulnerability runs like a current through the whole show.

Leaving the exhibition, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the “Nara” character had followed me, shape-shifting with each encounter. She isn’t one person—she’s anger, loneliness, mischief, and resilience all at once. In a world that often demands polished smiles and filtered perfection, her raw honesty felt like a challenge and a gift. I walked out of the Hayward unsettled but strangely comforted, as though I’d just met a fragment of myself staring back.

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