remix #1..
/The original piece, titled "ichigo ichie" (shown to the right) was a present for my sister. It's of a rose from my mothers garden in San Diego, with a butterfly in flight and a dragonfly on a leaf. The Chinese kanji "ICHIGO ICHIE" (painted in the lower right corner) means "once in a lifetime." This expression is often used in appreciation of the moment. Similar to the expressions; "stop and smell the roses" and also "carpe-diem".
Now, in the remix of this painting, I wanted to add elements representative of death to balance the inherent life of the original piece. The reason for this being that in any one moment, there is both life and death occurring simultaneously. To focus on one, without the other, would be depicting a rare, if not fictitious, sense of reality. Which brings us to the second Chinese character painted (above my stamp) onto the remix; Shogyo Mujo. This is a Buddhist idea which means; all things change, nothing is permanent. All things are transitional and have no separate existence.
In addition to the skeleton hand holding the rose, there are also two ladybugs and one spider hanging just beneath the lower rose.
ICHIGO ICHIE meets SHOGYO MUJO
I have prints available (purchase) of this remix if you're interested. As per all of my pieces, there is a limited print count of twenty five.
original ICHIGO ICHIE painting.