Yoshitomo Nara’s first solo exhibition in New York in nearly a decade has taken over both of David Zwirner’s Chelsea spaces. The two-part show surveys four decades of work across painting, drawing, and sculpture, tracing how the artist has refined his visual language. Nara’s figures, with their oversized heads, wide eyes, and strange expressions, are rooted in his childhood in rural northern Japan and shaped by a lifelong engagement with nature, folklore, and music. Their faces convey both innocence and defiance, which is perhaps why they resonate so widely. On 20th Street, new paintings and large-format oil-stick drawings hang alongside early works from the 1980s. The space on 19th Street presents 13 monumental bronze “snow monster” sculptures, enlarged to 10 times the size of Nara’s palm-sized clay heads and finished in white urethane. —Clara Scholl

“Yoshitomo Nara” is on view at David Zwirner’s 537 West 20th Street and 533 West 19th Street locations in New York