Le Lapin de Sous-bois (The Undergrowth Rabbit)
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| After A Siesta (detail view) |
Dear Friends,
I am very happy to share with you my new paintings which I spent a few months thinking and designing and have been painting the whole last month. The paintings this time have a classic feeling, as I borrowed classic paintings from the 17th century which I will explain more later. I grew up visiting farmers to play with rabbits and other animals in Japan, I looked for wild foxes and rabbits near a liver in my neighborhood but I have never seen the real one, only the footprints. Same for the snakes, we knew there are snakes behind houses and where there are shades and the air is wet, but most of the time we only found the snake skins. I had about 9 kids in my neighborhood who were around the same ages and we had so much time to explore and examine the world we lived in back then. And kids went out much freely by themselves without adults in daytime.
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| After A Siesta (left) and Still Alive (right) Nearly Finished Progress View |
I have the description about Le lapin de Sous-bois (The Undergrowth Rabbit) at the end of this blog where you can learn about those rabbits along with original paintings from Marseus.
Please visit my website under Other Works page, or Gristle Gallery's Toadstool exhibition to view the completed whole images. The Toadstool exhibition at Gristle Gallery (Williamsburg, Bkln) will open on April 10th. Their entire exhibition for 2021 went online exclusive due to the global pandemic, it is unfortunate but hopefully by this year we will change the situation.
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| After a Siesta, 2020 (detail view) |
This time, I wanted to capture the attitude and atmosphere, and that the prey animals have in their behavior but we don't. Facial expressions...., especially the eyes. Rabbits are very emotional animals just like humans. Learning about others is learning about ourselves, but I always like to start with similarities first as our instinct will try to find differences. Did you know that rabbits are fascinating that they even sleep with their eyes open. My bird also always sleeps on the perch and she won't fall from there. Now that it's finally spring, she has been singing so happily. I am very grateful to be able to observe their ecology closely everyday. I want to know why the world is peaceful to the prey animals but I can only do so by imagining.
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| Detail view of "Still Alive" |
I'm sharing two of my latest paintings of toadstool bunnies. The Toadstool-Lop is titled After a Siesta" and the European Rabbit (but mostly the model is netherland dwarf rabbit) is titled "Still Alive" they are both Le lapin de sous-bois (undergrowth-rabbits). I gave French name to them in honor of Otto Marseus Van Schrieck, the Dutch Golden Age painter, as his works of forest floor were often titled in German and translated into other languages with word sous-bois (or Sotto bosco) which is "undergrowth" in English.
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For those mushroom rabbits, I see forest(and mushrooms) manifesting to grow on them rather than rabbits cultivating them. The environment affects individuals, that's then individuals affects the environment, that's the rule of this world.
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| Detail view of "Still Alive", 2020 |
About the paintings "Le Lapin de Sous-bois"(The Undergrowth Rabbit)
Have you seen rabbits that grow mushrooms (or undergrowth) on their body while they sleep? The mushrooms fall when they wake up from their dream, and they are no different from other rabbits when they are awake. It is, thus, difficult to spot them, but have you seen mushrooms upside down in forests undergrowth in person, in a painting, or in an old picture?
Everything that exists on this planet is growing at every moment. Even if it feels like things are paused and seems like we are stagnant, it keeps moving and we are ever-changing.
To create these new works, I borrowed and incorporated two of the many forest paintings of the Dutch Golden Age painter, Otto Marseus Van Schrieck in homage to his study.
Happy April Everyone.
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| Otto Marseus Van Schrieck "Sous-Bois-Stillleben mit einer Schlange, einem Schmetterling und Pilzen" |
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