Gozu Tenno.icon

This is a new series that combines UV relief printing with acrylic painting. I have named these small 15 cm square canvas works the “.icon” series. Based on the idea that all things—mountains, rivers, plants, and trees—can attain Buddhahood, I depict a wide range of subjects, including Buddhist imagery, flowers, and digital devices.

Gozu Tennō was enshrined at Yasaka Shrine, which I often visited when I lived in Kyoto, until the separation of Shinto and Buddhism. In an era when Shinto and Buddhism were intertwined, kami did not necessarily have to be the deities of the Kojiki or Nihon Shoki.

The Tokyo place name Hachioji is said to derive from the enshrinement of Gozu Tennō and his eight princes. Tennozu is said to be the place where a mask of Gozu Tennō was pulled up from the sea, and today there is a station there called Tennozu Isle.

Gozu Tennō was a kami of epidemics themselves, while also being a kami who pacified epidemics. When I think of Gozu Tennō, I sense a cultural eeriness that has now disappeared, yet still seems to spread like an invisible thin membrane.