Born in 1959, Nara was raised in post-World War II Japan, a time and place defined by aggressive economic development and an influx of Western pop culture — including the animation of Walt Disney and Warner Bros. While many of his contemporaries were inundated by the pop components of a renewed Japanese culture, Nara was a "latch-key child," who was raised in the country by working parents. Often left alone to entertain himself, he became a fan of comic books and depended on his pets to keep him company. "I have a big influence from my childhood," Nara usually explains. American cartoons, Japanese comics, and animated television shows such as Gigantor and Speed Racer were central to his upbringing, but of equal importance was the isolation of the rural Japanese countryside and the imagination it fostered.

The children and animals that populate Nara's paintings, drawings, and sculptures are wise beyond their years. Direct gazes, knowing expressions, and mischievous grins confirm the fact that, although adorable, these children know what the world has in store for them. What Nara expresses in his work is the alienation and fierce independence natural to many children. He invites us to return to a time when innocence and unruliness went hand in hand; when emotions were not expected to be filtered; when make-believe was not equated with lunacy; and when the world was a fantastic and terrifying kingdom to be explored—not conquered.

Nara's art has been widely integrated into mass culture. While he is considered a cult figure in his native Japan, his works appeal to a range of generations and nationalities and are now woven into the fabric of Western pop culture as well. Adored by everyone from art critics to punk kids, Nara's figures haunt galleries and museums, and adorn T-shirts, CD cases, ashtrays, and clocks. Even the "cool" characters in some of today's most popular adolescent dramas ( Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer ) have donned Nara t-shirts in recent episodes. Around the world, Nara's characteristic style has become a symbol for the idiosyncratic individual who marches to the beat of his or her own drum.