Dance

New mini print I made for Leftover Print Exchange project!

Dance, 2016

Getting very close to the days at Athenaeum Library

I'm starting my residency at Melbourne Athenaeum Library from Monday 21 July.
Here are some sneak peeks of my works for the Library.
These are my interpretations as an adult of Japanese folklores and ghost stories I heard as a child.

I'll be making these books during the week as well as demonstrating and giving talks on Wednesday and Thursday.
Or if you are in town, feel free to pop in, we can talk about books and maybe make something together!

Boat spirit (working title), 2014

Wrath of cats (working title), 2014

Old fox of Aoyama (working title), 2014

Melbourne Athenaeum Library
Level 1, 188 Collins Street (right opposite Regent Theatre, above Athenaeum Theatre)
Melbourne
03 9650 3100

Procession

Procession is my new artist book and it'll probably be the last work of 2012.
More images are available on my website too.

detail, Rats declaring a war

This will likely be the last book of 2012.
I made 6 miniature books this year and I thoroughly enjoyed making them.

I am working on a new book at the moment for my first book of 2013.
It's going to be series of small linocut prints based on Japanese word-play...
I can't wait for the studio to open so I can start printing them!

An offering for a goose queen

This book will be displayed at Tinker Tailor in Trentham in Victoria, Australia.

Tinker Tailor is a studio gallery supporting local artists and craftpeople. (my previous post about them)
Andrew and Julia Rutkin's lovely space has an eclectic range of handmade works.
My prints are also on their wall.
I love visiting there, Rutkins have such wonderful family and Trentham is a beautiful place to visit.
About an hour away from Melbourne, it's a great weekend away too.

Sugar glider and a team cat and crow

I would like to thank Irwin and McLaren bookbinders where I work for giving me advice and materials to work on all the books I made this year! Looking forward to working with you again next year.

A shadow procession

Tinker Tailor

24 High Street, Trentham, VIC 3458

042 9945 181

rutkin4@hotmail.com 
www.tinker-tailor.com.au/
http://tinkertailortrentham.blogspot.com.au/

Irwin and McLaren Bookbinders

64 Cubitt Street, Richmond, VIC 3121
03 9428 5829
info@irwinandmclaren.com.au
http://www.irwinandmclaren.com.au/

Bakeneko day and night

Bakeneko at 2am

Cat is one of the animals that often become yokai (supernatural monsters) in Japanese folklores, along with fox, Japanese raccoon dog, spider and snake.

Bakeneko is a yokai that an ordinary cat transforms into.
Once transformed, Bakeneko walks with hind legs, talks like human, dances with tenugui around head, controls dead people, curses, attacks human with a wolf pack and so on.
There are also stories where Bakeneko played sumo with human too.

Bakeneko

I've made two edition called Bakeneko and Bakeneko at 2am.

First I made Bakeneko, as part of Impression fund raising exhibition at Australian Print Workshop.
Then I wanted to put this cat in a different setting, so I turned the sky into night time for the second edition, Bakeneko at 2am.
2am points around the hour of Ox in zodiac - even plants and trees are asleep, that's when we consider suitable time for demons and monsters to lurk around..

Bakeneko will be exhibited at Australian Print Workshop from the end of this month along with over 160 artists.
It's a great opportunity to buy prints at an affordable cost ($100, $150 or $200).
I've already seen what my friends Bridget Farmer and Damon Kowarsky have done for this show. Looking really lovely!
All works are edition of 10, so be quick or they will be sold out!

Space trumpet I

 

Space trumpet I is a new print I made in collaboration with Damon Kowarsky.

Martens are slender and very agile animals with bushy tails covered in yellowish to dark brown fur.
They are related to minks, badgers, ferrets and weasels.

detail, Space trumpet

It's a side story but martens are thought to have an ability to metamorphose into something else in some Japanese lores.
As their fur is highly expensive, there is a saying among hunters "don't go hunting with two people".
It is because the fur can be sold at a high price, one might kill the other for it.

detail, Space trumpet

Damon drew Japanese marten recently at Melbourne Museum mammal collection room.
Marten looked quite scary there unlike these cuddly guys in our new print.


Detail on the print is on our website!

Baku

My new print is of a Baku - a Japanese mythic creature that devours dreams and nightmares.
It has a long genealogy originating from Chinese folklore and has been around and familiar to us since 14th century.

It is said to have a body of a bear, an elephant trunk, tiger's paws, ox's tail and rhinoceros eyes.

Image of Baku was often used in shrine and temple architecture and netsuke carvings.
People also put images under the pillows so they wouldn't have nightmares.
There were even pillow boxes with Baku's image or pillows with a shape of Baku.

In recent years it often appears in anime and manga like Pokemon.
Baku also means "tapir" in Japanese so some interpretations of Baku look somewhat Tapir-like.

My Baku is walking around at night looking for dreams to eat..

Nue

Nue is a monster in Japanese legend and folklore. 
It appears in numbers of literatures and it is described as having the head of a monkey, the body of a racoon, the legs of a tiger and the tail of a snake.
Originally the word Nue was first referred to a bird called White's Thrush.
People thought those birds were bad omen because they only sang at night.
Nue that we know of today as the animal above was formed in one episode from a book about an epic account of a war (Tale of the Heike) in 1180-1185. It talks about how this monster appeared as a black cloud with strange sound and made the emperor have nightmares and fall ill.

This is my latest print from last week.
I love drawing animals, especially furry ones, more than anything else. (if it wasn't too obvious from all my other works...)
Second thing I love drawing is plants.
This print just satisfied my love of drawing animals and plants.
I got to draw 4 different animals and lots of plants in one plate!

It is a two plate etching with Sanguine / Warm red / Raw Amber and Black / Sanguine / Raw Amber

hello!

Gasha dokuro II

Damon and I made a new print, Gasha Dokuro II last week.

Gasha dokuro is a yokai / monster in Japan. 

It is a giant skeleton made up of bones and grudge of people who died in wars, starvation or who are unburied.
It is said that Gasha dokuro walks around with chattering sound at night and if it sees someone, it will crush and eat him/her.

Ukiyoe artist Kuniyoshi Utagawa (1798-1861) first made an image for a story where he made one giant skeleton to represent great numbers of life size skeletons.
His anatomically correct skeleton based on European medical books made a significant impact at the time, it's become one of his masterpieces.
The story wasn't about Gasha dokuro but his image created a strong direction for artists to create contemporary images of this yokai, including this version.

This print was made for La Calaca International Print Exchange.
Theme is Calacas, Day of the Dead! Our monster will travel to the US this week!

Laputa robo and Mikoshi Nyudo

Damon made a drawing of a robot from the film "Laputa" on the rooftop of Ghibli Museum last year in Tokyo.
We've been making prints based on the drawing.

Damon and I've printed this second version - it's called Mikoshi nyudo.

Mikoshi nyudo is a Yokai - it is a monster, ghost or mysterious natural phenomenon in Japanese folklores.

It's a yokai you'd meet on the street alone at night.
At first glance it's said to look like a Buddhist monk but it keeps growing taller as you look up.
We chose a black head with gleaming eyes instead as this is how I felt as a child walking alone at night.



This is our first image, Laputa II from Damon's Laputa robot.


Third version is Laputa III.
This is a smaller image than the other two.

Damon's Laputa robot is still evolving.
I'm very much looking forward to working on a new image when Damon returns from his trip to the US for his exhibitions in Philadelphia and New York in April.

Rat and strange tree

Rat with a tree whose fruits appear to be human head.
This strange tree was first illustrated in Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Hyakki Shūi (Supplement to The Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past), published circa 1781
It's one of the books where he depicted supernatural bestiaries, collections of ghosts, spirits, spooks and monsters, many of which Toriyama based on literature, folklore, other artwork.
The fruits are often smiling or laughing, even when they are falling...
:) :) :) :)

more info on my website

hanging flamingo

One cat just leads to another - Ernest Hemingway

another edition pulled with Damon

Trumpet team

old little robo, out of date in his world.


Kamikiri, old Japanese folklore monster (yokai) who appeared out of nowhere and cut hair secretly on the street.
they disappeared after Japan widely adopted Western culture, people had their hair like westerners'.

they are two of four trumpet prints with Damon.
my little dream is to make a whole orchestra with our prints...

City and Space

Gasha Dokuro, part of Impressions 2010, a fundraising exhibition at Australian Print Workshop, opening in 3 December.
Collaborative print with Damon Kowarsky


Space Seal!

preparatory drawings

preparing for a cabinet installation at the end of this month.
this is one of the most fun time in any projects for me!

masks

i guess i really miss my family in japan... it's end of summer over there, must be still hot!

Anatomy of living things

Our Australian Print Workshop has opened from its renovation closure recently.
Because I didn't have access to etching facility, I have been only doing engravings on wood and copper.
And also I've been doing lots of ink drawings in preparation of etching when the Workshop opens.


I'm going to the Workshop next week to start making some etchings using the drawings I've done while it was closed.


These are selections of drawings I want to make etchings of.
They are all like things inside living creatures because lots of references I use are Life's Natural Library books or National Geographic magazines.


As I look at them, my dream grows...
It is to have a Wunderkammer, Cabinet of Curiosity with my prints, drawings and collections of mineral specimens!!

Yokai

Since I was little, I have always been fascinated by Yokai.
My all time favorite comic is about them too.
Yokai is a Japanese supernatural beings often from folklore.
They are kind of like monsters but some of them are treated like gods too in Shinto.

There are many types of Yokai.
Ordinary household items that come to life after many years, humans transformed into one by extreme emotional state or animals that have lived long enough to have magical power, to name a few.


I'm trying to depict Yokai with different media like books and drawings.

Maybe I'll try making a sculpture next time.....

Rachel's Garden II

One suffocatingly hot night Rachel is awaken by the fragrance of catnip.



She follows the fragrance, it leads her to a place that seems familiar to her.
It looks like the garden she once visited in her dream.


She comes across some sort of procession.
It is a procession of supernatural beings and monsters that are unknown to her.





She wonders whether she is awake or merely dreaming. Or maybe she has stepped into someone else's dream.



After the procession has passed, she feels as though she has been left behind.
She feels as though she actually belongs to them.


The world around her turns completely silent.