In Japan, Yoshitomo Nara is one of Japan’s most well-known artists. He is also known for his unique style of featuring a girl with a unique face and piercing eyes.
Immediately when you see this artwork, one automatically knows its the work of Yoshitomo Nara.
And how awesome was it for me to discover that Yoshitomo Nara also contributed to the Doraemon Tokyo 2017 art exhibit.
The first work is titled “DORAMICHAN’s ribbon was taken by GIAN” and is acrylic on canvas.
The painting was first displayed at “THE Doraemon exhibition” in 2002.
According to Nara, “I was interested in the formation of Doramichan’s face, the way her nose section sticks out slightly more than with Doraemon’s perfectly spherical.face, and I decided to take her as my subject. But then the picture wound up being not side-on, as I imagined, but a frontal portrait…”.
Nara continued, “Also, Doramichan started with a bow on her head, but then I decided to make the whole thing simple, so I got rid of the bow and the bell around her neck. Doing my research, I found that the bow served as a kind of ear, enabling her to hear, so original the title was going to be “Doramichan (Prior to Attachment of Bow Hearing Device”. The idea was that she was waiting for her last part to be affixed, before she was shipped out as a feline robot. That’s why her production date is written on her collar: 12.2.2114. But then, I went on research and discovered that Doramichan’s bow gets stolen by Gian after he’s given the “Gender Bender”, a drug that makes men like women. So in the end, I decided to paint Doramichan in a bit of a sulk after her bow is stolen. When I discovered Doramichan’s horsepower is 10,000 (in contrast to Doraemon’s 129.3), I got a real sense of her hidden power. That’s why her eyes look a bit ferocious in my rendering of her. Probably.”
Nara created a second part to his 2002 painting for this exhibit titled “DORAMICHAN’s ribbon still taken by GIAN @ midnight” which is done via acrylic on canvas.
Nara wrote, “I joined in ‘THE Doraemon exhibition’ in 2002, and I’m both delighted and a little embarrassed to be asked a second time. This time, I planned to paint Doramichan with a bow, but I ended up getting rid of it once again… Actually, I also did away with the bell around her neck too.”
