Sketches for the Sculpture

2011 was a year of national mourning in Japan as a major earthquake laid waste to the northeastern region. This disaster shook Nara to the core. It compelled him to lay down his brush and ceased painting. After much soul-searching and contemplating on the meaning and purpose of art, he dusted himself off and chose a new medium. He sculpted modelling clay with his own hands and subsequently casted them as massive bronze sculptures. The year following the disaster, Nara held a solo exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art in which numerous bronze figures were featured. The rough texture as well as marks left by the artist's handmade process attest to Nara's sheer willpower and determination when he created these pieces. Compared to the polished surfaces found in three-dimensional works that he created in the past, this set of new works signals a major artistic breakthrough.

Shown in the same exhibitions were a series of sketches entitled Sketches for the Sculptures. Nara has always considered sketching an important part of his creative process, because he believes that compared to painting, sketching is much more conducive to releasing emotions that he felt in the moment. In this series of sketches, we can witness that Nara's drawing practice has changed with his shift to sculptural endeavours. The thick, bold, and direct lines that he used in the past are replaced by multiple passes of layered and delicate lines. This shift can probably be attributed to his change in perspective after the disaster, "The world should be more complicated. Paintings should be more complicated. Our first reaction should not be attempting to simplify it". Looking at the word "Thinker" in this work, it is evident that Nara's creative output has entered a new phase that values introspection and thinking processes.