And Then Blue 1999

In this work, "And Then Blue," Takashi Murakami uses flat colour and hard edges to depict a character with an over-the-top smile. I can imagine him bent over this canvas, carefully filling in each shape with vibrant, saturated colour. What I love about Murakami's work is the way he mashes up high and low culture. He's clearly in conversation with Pop Art, especially Warhol's silkscreens, but he’s also drawing on traditional Japanese art forms. The flatness of the image, the clean lines – it's all so deliberate, so calculated. But within that control, there's a kind of manic energy, a sense of barely contained chaos. It makes you think about what happens when different visual languages collide. When cuteness meets something darker, something a little unsettling. It is this intersection that art happens.