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Inside Yoshitomo Nara's beautiful studio sanctuary in Japan

‘I think a place in nature is like an entrance that guides you on that journey back to where your sensibilities began’

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Reading time 1 minute read

Originally posted Thu 17 Jul 2025

Yoshitomo Nara is in a reflective mood as he looks out at the fields adjacent to his artist’s studio in Japan’s Tochigi Prefecture and considers how, after a life spent travelling the world, he has now returned to the environment he grew up in, reconnecting with a childhood surrounded by nature.

This observation comes as Nara wraps up this video tour of his studio in which he discusses his preference for working solo, his love of music and a tendency to think of himself in miniature.

The artist also demonstrates how he likes to have his studio primed and ready so he is able to get straight to work whenever inspiration hits; this includes having a range paints and brushes at hand – even though he rarely uses all of them – and having cardboard boards of multiple sizes ready to work upon so as not to lose his creative flow to the ‘hassle’ of stretching a fresh canvas.

Nara also shows some of his most recent sculptural works and gives an insight into how his summer 2025 exhibition at our Hayward Gallery took shape, beginning with a scale maquette of our gallery populated by miniature magnetic replicas of his paintings.

‘When it comes to actually painting on canvas it feels like a serious, head-to-head match. But it’s precisely because it’s a serious battle that I think good things come out of it.’