Takashi Murakami, a multifaceted artist who works in sculpture, painting, engraving, installation... He is called "the Japanese Andy Warhol", a simplistic nickname, which still explains a little of his art. Because Murakami is pure Pop. He draws on popular culture and uses it as a tool. In fact, his typical characters are nowadays a pop icon in themselves. Takashi Murakami was born and grew up in Tokyo in the 1960s. His goal was to eventually work in animation or manga and so he studied at Tokyo University of the Art, specializing in Nihonga, the traditional Japanese style of painting. With tradition in mind, he became interested in more contemporary styles. A trip to New York made him drink from the influences of American art. He began to create an art with a Japanese essence but with huge and evident Western influences. He also began to focus on popular culture, that "low culture" as opposed to "high art", as in the case of otaku (anime and manga). Thus was born the Superflat. Superflat is a postmodern art movement that provides an "outside" interpretation of Japanese popular culture through the eyes of the otaku subculture. Murakami begins to show a critical look at consumerism and sexual fetishism (which prevailed after the Westernization of post-war Japanese culture), capitalist neurosis, repetition, distortion... Murakami creates his own characters such as Mr. Dob, a kind of self-portrait, the repeated flowers that fill the entire surface, Buddhist images, or hypersexualized drawings. The artist also plays with scales, and often creates large-scale works, or series of the same piece in small format.