Toji. Winter Solstice

I should have posted these a few weeks back in a more timely manner, but with the record levels of snow recently thoughts of winter and the return of the sun are on my mind. They are three paintings I did about 5 years ago on the theme of Toji, winter solstice.

 

They are titled, rather unimaginatively Toji, Toji 2, and Toji 3. They are acrylic on paper and measure 38 by 26 cms.

 

They are for sale, so if interested make me an offer :)

Amaterasu

Amaterasu. Acrylic on paper. 2006

I'm a painter as well as a mask-maker. This is my version of Amaterasu, the "Sun-Goddess", and though I use some shinto symbolism it also owes much to Changing Woman, one of the Navajo deities.

Any introductory text on Shinto will say that Amaterasu is the most important kami in Japan, but that is only true of contemporary shinto which is closely related to the emperor-centric State Shinto created in the late 19th Century.

Amaterasu is the kami that the current Imperial family claim descent from and that is why she is now pushed as the "head" kami. Before the 20th Century there were actually very few shrines dedicated to her.

The most well known myth of Amaterasu is the Iwato story wherein she hides herself in a cave and plunges the world into darkness and is later tricked into coming back out. The above shot is a scene from an Iwami Kagura performance of Iwato.

You can see a small selection of my paintings from the past 38 years here