Eastern Bestiary

Japanese Folklore Paintings | Kitsune, Peacock & Sacred Animals

Following the contemplative restraint of the GENJI series, Eastern Bestiary shifts toward vivid celebration—a bestiary drawn from Japanese art traditions and folklore. The kitsune (fox spirit), peacock, and duck emerge as totems of transformation, vanity, and the sacred mundane, each carrying centuries of symbolic weight.

Category: Literary Abstract – MONO NO AWARE

Japanese Visual Language

Working in acrylic on canvas with Molotov markers, I marry bold, vibrant strokes with delicate linear work and vinyl layering. The aesthetic borrows from Japanese visual traditions—the flattened pictorial space, the decorative impulse that never apologizes for beauty, the way a single creature can contain both naturalistic detail and supernatural presence.

This is where expressionism meets *ukiyo-e*, where color asserts itself with unabashed intensity. After the monochromatic introspection of GENJI, this series allowed me to explore how Japanese aesthetics navigate between restraint and extravagance, the observed and the imagined.

Symbolic Systems

These animals are not illustrations but embodiments. Each creature holds multiple meanings, inviting viewers to engage with Eastern iconography not as exotic ornament but as living symbolic systems that still resonate.

The series continues a dialogue begun with GENJI—an ongoing fascination with how Japanese culture constructs meaning through natural forms, how animals become vessels for philosophical depth, how beauty and significance intertwine without apology.

byhohlik/November 22, 2025/inSERIES, about

Eastern Bestiary

Japanese Visual Language

Symbolic Systems

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