RESUME | PRESS RELEASE | ARTIST STATEMENT | MOIRAHAHN.COM
Twilight
Chorus: New Paintings
January 8- February 19, 2005
Artist Reception: Sat. January 8, 6-8PM
ARTIST STATEMENT: Twilight Chorus
Similarities and differences in the ways Eastern and Western cultures codify beliefs about the afterlife intrigue me. The ‘Heaven and Hell’ series examines striking similarities in Buddhist and Christian iconography concerning what the future may hold. I was surprised to learn that Christian concepts, including purgatory and limbo, exist in some forms of Japanese Buddhism, as well as ‘gatekeeper’ figures, and punishments befitting the particular crimes that led the soul to hell. William Blake’s watercolors from The First Book of Urizen (a chapter of his Bible of Hell) also influenced this series.
The long term ubiquity of anime and manga in Japan and the US influenced me to replace puti (cherubs) in heaven, and other supporting cast members (in hell), with Doraemon and Atom Boy, from Japanese cartoons. Mass marketing, cell phones and an overdose of kawai (cuteness) contribute to these updated visions of eternal torment.
Ideas for paintings also emerged from observation of the natural world, particularly the habits of wild birds I feed every day and feral cats that lurk in the shadows of our backyard.
Edo (1600-1868) and Meiji period (1868-1912) woodblock print masters Shibata Zeshin, Gototei Kunisada (Toyokuni III), and Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi, and Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972) inspired me to imagine a fourth dimension populated by these creatures.