Takashi Murakami is an indisputable pioneer in global contemporary art, and founder of the Superflat style. His creative output exploits various time periods, styles, and subject matter, as he takes inspiration from manga, anime, nihonga, pop art to blur the line between fine art and commercial art. At once his works are evolutionary descendants of Japanese visual language, while also critically embracing the decadence of contemporary global consumer culture. His smiling flowers are among his most famous motifs - the abundance of smiles at first merrily receives the viewer, but at a closer look their emptiness taunts the vapidness of mindless consumption. The artist himself explains that the flowers hinted at the repressed, contradictory emotions and collective trauma of the atomic bombings in 1945.