Celebrated for his iconic neo-pop aesthetic, the Japanese artist Mr. consistently draws from the visual language of otaku subculture centred around adolescence, manga, anime, and video games. Particularly inspired by popular heroine characters in the 1990s and early 2000s, his oeuvre is synonymous with cartoonlike representations of youthful, everyday Japanese girls. More than just portrayals of the artist’s personal fantasies as a self-proclaimed otaku, however, Mr.’s paintings not only seek to empower his female protagonists in society through a bold aesthetic of representation, but also challenge the boundaries between high and low art by incorporating manga-style visual motifs.

Installation view of the current lot (right) at Hong Kong, Lehmann Maupin, Floating in the Air in the Vicinity of a Convenience Store, 14 September - 21 October 2017

First exhibited in Mr.’s 2017 solo show with Lehmann Maupin in Hong Kong, Misaki is a maturation from his hypersexualised portrayals in earlier works. Featuring oversized eyes, vivid purple hair and a blush-tinted face, the subject’s floating head embodies the Japanese concept of kawaii, inviting the viewer to experience platonic adoration towards the central character due to her cuteness and innocence.

Her sparkling pupils are filled with motifs – scattered across her irises are bright depictions of social media apps, musical notations, flowers and faces, as if they are telling a story of her innermost thoughts and observations. As the artist explains, ‘I think of them as a kind of a mirror reflecting the world… From one point, I started painting girls’ eyes in a way that they seem to have a reflection of something, and since then, I cannot paint eyes without any reflection. There must be something reflecting in the eyes of the girls I paint.’ ⁱ Unique to the present composition, amidst the colourful imagery in the subject’s eyes are literal exclamations of ‘yes!!’ and ‘WE CAN!!’, exuding an air of childlike optimism that adds to her allure.

Detail of the present work

“I don’t really interact with the brighter side of life. But precisely because of this, imagined scenes of comfort and reassurance evolve inside of me, becoming my artistic vision. There is a darkness that exists. But in order to break out from it, I create these bright, playful works. Perhaps the viewer can find some comfort also, in the awareness of my battle and process.”
— Mr.

Beyond the cheerful appearances of his subjects, Mr.’s characters after 2011 also seem to convey underlying feelings of solitude and anxiety, which is partially influenced by the artist’s emotional response to Japan’s traumatic past during World War II and the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Indeed, whilst Mr. still depicts scenes of comfort and positivity, he simultaneously adopted a more grittier style of painting in these later works.

Although classically trained as an artist, as Mr. has matured in his career, he has continuously sought out newer techniques and mediums, such as spray paint, to create rawer backgrounds and texture. In the current work, patches of orange hues on the girl’s face and hair evoke a sense of uneasy incompleteness which stands at odds to her cute appearance. Between this overall contrast between innocent idealism and gritty realism however, her bright smile reveals Mr.’s intentions in representing the strong female archetype, which lies at the centre of his instantly identifiable works.

From Underground to Mainstream

"The biggest difference is that I use canvas in my work and not animation or comics. My work is about art and expression as opposed to manga and anime’s narrative-based structure. As a result, my audience feels different emotions with my take of animation on canvas. This is where the value of my work lies."
— Mr.

Among the first to bring otaku subculture onto canvas, Mr.’s oeuvre has helped push Japanese subculture into the mainstream and elevate popular culture into the realm of fine art. His openness towards identifying as an otaku also subverts the negative connotations traditionally linked with the term. Having been a protégé of Takashi Murakami for over 20 years, Mr. is associated with the Superflat movement pioneered by his mentor, which similarly explores flattened forms that conflate high and low culture. However, by explicitly referencing Japanese pop aesthetics, Mr.’s works successfully undo the stigma of producing anime-style art whilst introducing it to a global audience, solidifying his position as one of the biggest names in Japanese contemporary art today.

Collector's Digest
- Born in 1969, Mr. experienced the birth of the characteristic anime style in the 1960s, and the mainstream rise of fandom culture in the 1980s.
- Discovered by Takashi Murakami in 1995, he graduated from the Department of Fine Arts, Sokei Art School in Tokyo a year later, and became a member of his mentor’s Kaikai Kiki gallery.
Interview with Mr. at his solo exhibition Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town, Phoenix Art Museum, 2022

Video Courtesy of Phoenix Art Museum
- Mr. was recently the subject of Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix (2022), the artist’s first U.S. solo exhibition in more than five years. His work has also been exhibited at renowned institutions including Quotidianist, How Art Museum, Shanghai (2021), and CARTE BLANCHE TO MR. AND PHARRELL WILLIAMS: 'A CALL TO ACTION', Musée Guimet, Paris (2019).
- Bridging the gap between fine art and pop culture, he has collaborated with musical artists such as Pharrell and The Weekend, along with lifestyle brand Supreme.
- Demonstrative of the ongoing strength of the artist’s market, 4 of Mr.’s top 5 results at auction are for paintings offered in the past 3 years. One of which is also from the same series of canvases shaped to the form of an anime-style head, depicting a young girl with motif-filled, starry eyes.
ⁱ Mr., quoted in Nadja Sayej, ‘Japanese Artist Mr. Celebrated Anime Before It Went Mainstream, Garage, 20 February 2019, online
- Provenance
  Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong
  Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2017
- Exhibited
  Hong Kong, Lehmann Maupin, Floating in the Air in the Vicinity of a Convenience Store, 14 September - 21 October 2017