Untitled

"Untitled" of 2005 is from a period in which Nara was working closely with the design studio graf in Osaka, and in which his print output shifted toward more painterly, textured surfaces. Lithographs from these years are typically built from multiple stones, with a soft tonal ground — frequently grey, dusty pink, or oatmeal — overlaid by a single drawn figure. The convention of leaving the image untitled is one Nara uses across his graphic output to keep the viewer focused on the figure rather than on a verbal cue, a strategy that sits within a wider Japanese tradition of leaving works open to private reading. The likely subject is a head or three-quarter-length child of the type that dominated his 2005 painting and drawing exhibitions, including the "From the Depth of My Drawer" tour. The 2005 prints occupy a transitional position between the harder graphic imagery of his Düsseldorf years and the softer, more introspective figures he developed in the second half of the decade.