The Shunga Occurrence

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I’ve always been a fan of this print; The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife by Hokusai, the image was first published in 1814. Although I wasn’t thinking of Hokusai at the time of painting the first few of these images, after I noticed this visual link I decided to look into these prints further. Turns out that The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife is part of the ukiyo-e movement that sought to express an idealisation of contemporary urban life and appeal to the new chōnin class. It was also Shunga, a Japanese term for erotic art, that was enjoyed by all social groups in the Edo period.

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I then came across something called Ero Guro or the English-Japanese highbred name, Wasei-eigo, ero from “ero(tic)”, Guro from “gro(tesque)”, and nansensu from “nonsense”. The “grotesqueness” implied in the term refers to things that are malformed, unnatural, or horrific. I think this unique name could be applied to the majority of my work.

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This led me to continue with this painting series as a contemporary Shunga/Ero guro series. Looking deeper into the human fixation with making erotic connections with cephalopods, in a somewhat Surrealist style. 

I decided to name these paintings after Japanese folklore, mythology and, other intriguing stories that I have always found fascinating. The ones I’ve done so far are titled, Amabie’s Kiss, Gigolo, Ameonna, and Ameotoko. I plan to repaint some of these at some point and continue more paintings relating to this recent research.

“I have drawn things since I was six. All that I made before the age of sixty-five is not worth counting. At seventy-three I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At ninety I will enter into the secret of things. At a hundred and ten, everything–every dot, every dash–will live”

-Hokusai Katsushika