Yoshitomo Nara was born on 5 December 1959 in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, Japan. He received his B.F.A. (1985) and an M.F.A. (1987) from the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music. Between 1988 and 1993, Nara studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, in Germany. Nara is one of the representative works of Japanese contemporary art. His artwork has been exhibited worldwide and housed at the MoMA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Yoshitomo Nara’s works often give people the impression of pink, round and cute colours, but the characters he depicts have a sense of loss, disillusionment, and sometimes squinting or piercing eyes. However, despite the cute appearance, the seemingly lonely feeling has fascinated many people and attracted the attention of the world. His most well-known and repeated subjects are “big-headed girls” with piercing eyes, who one Nara scholar describes as having “childlike expressions that resonate with adult emotions, their embodiment of kawaii (cuteness) carries a dark humour, and any explicit cultural references are intertwined with personal memories.” His works also set record high prices on the auction market. In 2019, Nara’s installation art Not Everything but/ Green House (2009) was sold for a new record price of HK$40.12m (US$5.12m) at Poly Auction Hong Kong. However, this record only lasted for a few hours. His artwork, Knife Behind Back (2000), a large-scale painting by Nara, was just sold at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Hong Kong for HK$195.7m (US$25m), nearly five times its record. The new record is also a milestone for Nara as he becomes the most expensive Japanese artist. Another work of Nara, “Can’t Wait ‘til the Night Comes” was sold for HK$92.9m in the same year.