“I’m easyyyyy….easy like a Sunday morning” sings Lionel Ritchie. My Sunday mornings are never easy. I make myself get off bed at the same time as the workday, get dressed, and go for a 45 minutes intense spin class at the gym. Even if I did a class on Saturday and if I’m planning to do another one on Monday…
Well, not this Sunday. I decided to make this Sunday morning easy. I had breakfast in bed, whilst watching some tranquil YouTube videos. And then went to see the new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in Southbank from the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara.
I had no prior knowledge of him besides reading a couple of articles announcing this upcoming exhibition. Yet, the pictures of some of his works immediately perked my metaphorical athenea. I was drawn to the child-like figures in the exhibition poster. Cute round faces, but stern, often mischievous expressions. Wide-set big eyes, the mouth simple lines. I always love a contradiction.
The artist has said these figures all represent parts of himself. For me personally, the best art is the kind that becomes a mirror of something – the self or the world surrounding the self. Nara’s work ended up being a mirror of myself.
In the first room, I’m faced with the installation of a tiny wooden house from which music is blasting. Whilst at first sight it may look almost like a playhouse for children, the waves of music coming from it are rough. Rock and indie hits from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Yet, the décor is infantile – so many miniatures of animals and dolls.
You peak inside, it’s a bedroom and a studio. It seems the artist just left the room to take a break from his work, leaving the lights on, the music playing, the desk in a disarray of coloured pencils. I want to understand the meaning behind every single object, but I know I can’t. It’s all open to one’s interpretation. Growing up, the artist spent large parts of his childhood alone, likely drawing, creating, listening to these records left around by his parents.
I take a moment to sit with it. It resonates deeply.
My childhood bedroom, the one at my parents’ back in Portugal. The one place that was a refuge for most of my life, the place where I feel the safest, at home, at ease. This bedroom is no longer just my childhood bedroom. It also became my teenager bedroom, my early adulthood bedroom. Until I moved to London at the age of 23, that bedroom was an island where I could just be with myself. It then also became my covid bedroom, again a refuge when the world was in full lockdown and reality felt out of control, a sight my myopic eyes couldn’t focus on. That bedroom is also my Christmas, and home visits bedroom. Thinking about it sends waves of warmth through my body, knowing it exists and it’s still there a consolation. That was the space where I dreamed, where I imagined, where I drew, I wrote, I studied and read. I was so alone all the time, and yet I never felt lonely.
The bedroom that witnessed my growth from a child to a teenager, to a young woman. That was the place I returned to after everything – after school, after vacations, after work. And now I keep returning to, always looking around at all the objects that I have collected as years have passed. Almost as if my bedroom has become a museum of me.
And as I was thinking about this… I was thinking about this idea of self. The idea of our inner child. Nara’s child-like figures are not innocent toddlers; in their eyes you might sometimes see a tear, but mostly you see defiance, resilience. The eyes are bright, iridescent with inner fire, with purpose. Some are immersed in water, with eyes closed, in deep contemplation, a meditative pose that took me back to myself, my own introspective nature – and to connection with the natural elements. Water being so essential. So calming. Such a beautiful, seamless way to connect to Nature. These figures… I saw them as myself. My inner child shedding tears for the things I am leaving behind as an adult – the dreams, the fantasies, the passions. All of those things that were truly me, because I’ve had them since I can remember.
Often people say the young know nothing. I think they know everything.
As a child I knew who I wanted to be. But as you grow up, the messages get blurred. As a child you are told to be good, to be kind – and that seems to be all it matters to be joyful, the measure of a happy life.
I wonder… at which point did being good and being kind – being human – stopped being so… important? This narrative is instead replaced with being suspicious instead of open. With thinking about yourself first, not always others. About restraint of emotions, instead of expression. Supressing the interests that used to drive us, to replace them for productivity and efficiency.
We betray that child. We try our best to cut ties with it, because it seems to be the only way to be an adult. An adult that will comply. We comply with social expectations, with the capitalistic machine, with the decisions of our governments, which sees wars and bombings and shrugs, because only profits matter. Adults who take jobs far from what they dreamed with as a child and still lets it be a measure of self-worth. An adult that slowly but surely sees their identity erased to a number – precisely what capitalism seems to aim for. To dry us out. To suck the soul out of us. And if I am not careful – as I once wasn’t – it will almost kill you. In some cases, it does.
If you still can, listen to that inner child. Imagine a little one like these Nara’s one living inside you. Mischievous, rebellious, refusing to relent.
What’s so interesting about Nara’s work isn’t necessarily the contradiction between childlike figures and the notion of war, suffering and the killing of innocents – even though a lot of his work has it as a theme. It’s about the child that lives within you and looks at all of it and refuses to be silenced – the anarchist in all of us. The revolt against the adult we were forced to become.
I have one of those children in me. A strong one. I spent a few years trying to suffocate her. But not anymore. Even when I’m back to the corporate world, famous for its inhumanity. Even when living under a capitalist society, under governments that allow genocides to happen. This inner child lets me hold on to me, to my uniqueness, to what makes me so human – my empathy, my emotional intelligence, my sensitivity. So even in the harshness of the every day, I show up with softness.
Many things, some of them awful, happen to us throughout life. What gives it meaning it’s not these events – it’s the way you treat them. How you react to them, how you care for them. How you live through it all.
Let your inner child win. Don’t let the spark go away. You’re still you, no matter what.
Love, Nic
P.S. Highly recommend this exhibition, if you live in London or visiting. At the Hayward Gallery, until the 31st of August.
The Winged Bone 
Love how you connected Nara’s art to your own inner child. Such a gentle reminder to protect that spark within us.
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Thank you!
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