Miyako 1997

Tadanori Yokoo made this print called Miyako, and what strikes me first is the combination of flat planes of color and these really intricate, almost psychedelic details. It’s like he's building up the image from different layers of reality. I'm super drawn to the figure at the center, standing on a lotus leaf. The texture in its skin is so strange and kind of wonderful. It's not just red, it's a whole world of reds and pinks, a rough, almost topographical surface. The way the image is constructed, with these floating elements and shifting perspectives, reminds me of other image-makers like James Ensor, or maybe even some of the Surrealists. Art's always about this kind of conversation, though, right? Artists looking at what came before and messing with it, making it their own. Yokoo definitely does that here, and the result is something that feels both familiar and totally out there.