Yoshitomo Nara’s oeuvre is characterized by his constant and varied investigation of the human condition as illustrated and elucidated through his depiction of children in the guise of adults. Associated with Japan’s Pop Art movement in the 1990s and drawing inspiration from a variety of sources such as punk and rock music, Manga illustrations, 20th century children’s books and Giotto, Nara works to express outwardly his innermost feelings evoking his childhood, and being mostly concerned with his personal difficulties in relating to the outside world.

Soldier is one of the few works by Nara which completely removes the figure from its original childlike surroundings. However, this “soldier” encircled as she is by flowery clouds and shrubbery, seems to be more playacting than actually engaged in warfare. The rigid conformity and deference to authority are aspects of both childhood and soldiering with which the artist has always taken grievance. Here he has conflated the two to create a new alternate reality where the child and soldier exist as individual entities living concurrently within this world of the artist’s creation.