Miss Margaret, 2016

In 2005 Nara moved into a beautiful studio that overlooks the green pastures in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, where he would eventually open N’s YARD, a space that houses his artwork and collection. The paintings he began making in this period are layered in a vast array of palettes that create a kaleidoscopic effect, with many works featuring different colored eyes. The backgrounds are often dark and thickly layered, with iridescent colors that float in and out of sight, evoking the existential effects of Mark Rothko’s soft, saturated forms. The works depict single figures and resemble portrait paintings by modern European artists such as Amedeo Modigliani and Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, yet their singularity and directness—seen especially in recent works Can’t Wait till the Night Comes (2012) and Miss Margaret (2016)—project a complex expression that combines sadness, anger, and serenity, which Nara achieves by reworking and repainting the faces multiple times.