Takashi Murakami Research Paper

Takashi Murakami is an incredible, talented Japanese artist whose modern artwork has attracted even the biggest names in the industry for collaborations, such as Kanye West and Louis Vuitton. Although Murakami does not think of his artwork as Pop Art, his work does have a Pop Art feel to it. To people without the knowledge of history behind his work, they will think that his work is happy and colorful, but behind the bright colors and the happy caricatures, Murakami tells a story that was inspired by the struggles of discriminated people.
When Murakami first began his career as an artist, he felt that Japanese art was influenced by the western trends. As he began to distance himself from that trend, he began to experiment with his own creativity and thus, Mr. BOD was born. Some of his work is inspired by disasters, for instance, after the Fukushima disaster, he created the Arhat

Every character he creates, there is a dark story behind it. His work relates to Andy Warhol’s pop art, but in the sense that Andy used every day items for inspiration, whereas Murakami has done the exact opposite in turning his artwork into everyday items, such as appliances and toys.
Takashi Murakami’s work is not so different from Asian cultural art. When looking at images of the different Buddha’s and Bodhisatvva’s, you see that some have a stern look on their facial expression, but there are others that wear a serene smile. Murakami’s characters share that same trait. When he painted the Arhat paintings after the Fukushima disaster to remind the Japanese people to not lose hope, he could have painted the characters with positive features and facial expressions, yet he did not. He used distorted features to almost present them as melting and not a part of this world anymore. Some of the characters seem to be agonizing in pain,