One of Asia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, Takashi Murakami has been heralded by the New Yorker as “Japan’s answer to Andy Warhol.”
Adopting the Pop Art principle of mixing high art with low culture, Murakami’s instantly recognisable style is distinctly Asian – where Warhol turned to Coca-Cola and Campbell’s soup, Murakami incorporates anime and kawaii (cartoon cuteness), alongside traditional ukiyo-e (Edo-era woodblocks) styles and aesthetics.
Known for his "Superflat” theory of art, developed in the 1990s out of an exhibition of the same name, Murakami is concerned with the relative “flatness” of Japanese visual culture in the post-atomic climate. Bold and bright, his grinning flowers and cutesy characters become ‘flat’ icons for socially complex themes of violence, death and technological dystopia.
