There is a lot going on in this piece....
I am a big fan of the Japanese artist Hokusai - you may recognize some of his work, such as this piece from "36 Views of Mt. Fuji", a woodblock print, and also his quintessential classic, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa".
I have always loved these woodblock images.
I wanted to do something fun with that.
There was an electronic keyboard laying around that had some broken keys, which meant that we had to take it apart and play with the electronic components and make them sound like a weird theremin. Of course.
But the little rubber nubs that go under the keys and are put together in strips were especially intriguing to me, and looked like nothing in the world so much as octopus tentacles.
And who has tentacles? Cthulu, of course.
And I wanted to do a sea scene, so there it is.
When you've created a hot pink anime pop art style octopus out of broken keyboard parts, it seems natural to keep going with that theme.
I incorporated elements of the Wave, and also of Fuji from the woodblocks I mentioned above....
I wanted to continue with the pop art aesthetic, using thick black lines of acrylic to delineate the figures in the piece...
The radiating sun is reminiscent of the rising sun flag of Edo-era Japan. It's later co-option by the Meiji government has led to some controversy over the image, but my use here is a reference to the feudal era from 1603-mid-1800s, which is contemporaneous with Hokusai, whose work originated predominantly during the later years of this period.
The frame is custom made by John Rouse and echoes the neon colors used in the piece. The other elements are acrylics and mod-podge to hold down the mixed media elements.
It's a weird piece. I love it, and I hope you do too.
Meditations on a Theme by Hokusai is for sale. Please contact us at Dada.Collective.Gallery@gmail.com for more details.
Thank you to Jason Welch with Jason Welch photography for capturing the dimension of this piece.
