Yoshimoto Nara

There is a mystic pull for me to this artists work. There is something magical in the shapes of his characters that just instantly appeals to me. We got a few little artworks of his hanging around the house, and when I recently saw one of his vinyl characters the little wanderer in a shop, I simply had to buy it. Now it stands on our bookshelf and look over the living room with a smug little smile.

Short description from Wikipedia about the artist:
Nara first came to the fore of the art world during Japan’s Pop art movement in the 1990s. The subject matter of his sculptures and paintings is deceptively simple: most works depict one seemingly innocuous subject (often pastel-hued children and animals drawn with confident, cartoonish lines) with little or no background. But these children, who appear at first to be cute and even vulnerable, sometimes brandish weapons like knives and saws. Their wide eyes often hold accusatory looks that could be sleepy-eyed irritation at being awoken from a nap—or that could be undiluted expressions of hate.

Nara, however, does not see his weapon-wielding subjects as aggressors. "Look at them, they [the weapons] are so small, like toys. Do you think they could fight with those?" he says. "I don’t think so. Rather, I kind of see the children among other, bigger, bad people all around them, who are holding bigger knives…"

Lauded by art critics , Nara’s bizarrely intriguing works have gained him a cult following around the world