Takashi Murakami (1962 – Present)
Nationality | Japanese |
Where Artist Lived | Itabashi City, Tokyo, Japan |
Associated Movements | Superflat style and Contemporary art |
Famous Artworks | Smooth Nightmare (2000) My Lonesome Cowboy (1998) Tan Tan Bo (2014) |
Takashi Murakami was born on the 1st of February 1962, and is recognized as one of the most influential Contemporary artists of the 21st century. Murakami works across a variety of media, including painting, animation, and sculpture, inspired by fashion and popular culture.
Murakami is credited with coining the term “Superflat”, which describes his unique style informed by the aesthetics of modern Japanese culture in the post-war era.
This style points towards an underlying legacy of two-dimensional flat imagery that permeated Japanese art and film industries in the late-20th century. Similar to the Pop art movement, “Superflat” sought to up-cycle visual elements that were considered “low-art” and repackage them in a fresh manner to elevate them to the level of “high-art”.
- Abstract “Superflat” image by artist Takashi Murakami at the London Gallery; Tadeas Navratil, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Smooth Nightmare (2000)
Date | 2000 |
Medium | PC print, pen, marker, and tape |
Dimensions (cm) | 40 x 40 |
Where It Is Housed | Private collection |
Takashi Murakami was dubbed “the Andy Warhol of Asia” and is considered the most famous Japanese artist to date. Smooth Nightmare is representative of his “Superflat” aesthetic that incorporates imagery with no visible depth of space. The artwork depicts various objects that seem to morph between human-like figures and mushrooms. A central figure illustrated by a mushroom with eyes takes up most of the canvas, with the background illustrated in a flat gray hue.
