奈良 美智 Nara Yoshitomo (Japanese, b.1959)was born in 1959 in Aomori of Japan. Earning both his BFA and MFA from the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, and later studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf during the late 1980s. He lived and studied in Germany from 1988 to 2000.His early works were influenced by european 20th Century Expressionism. Around 2001, Nara became associated with an avant-garde group of Japanese artists known as Superflat. His most well-known and repeated subject is a young child with piercing eyes.  

Nara dedicated a poem:

It looks like walking on top of a string

It is me riding on a boat, alone

It is empty and quiet above and below me

In that, I slowly move forward

Swimming forward at the same time

My hand will probably reach somewhere

I don't know if that's true but I keep going forward 

- Yoshitomo Nara