Cougar is an emerging artist who creates photo realistic oil paintings of pixelized images.
This exhibition at SEIZAN GALLERY TOKYO 凸 will be the artist’s first with Seizan Gallery and will focus on the theme of “violence opposed by non-violence.”
Inspired by the 1967 photo Flower Power, which depicts soldiers suppressing a Vietnam War protest, Cougar’s exploration of the motif culminates in a resolute rejection of war and gun violence throughout the globe.
Flower power
2023
h60×w130 cm
Oil on canvas
The gun society that now represents the United States will turn to weapons as a solution to its fears. The result is an accelerating breakdown of social order, and the safety of citizens is becoming the ultimate self-preservation. The U.S. Constitution no longer protects citizens. The deterrent force of guns has unleashed its control in the name of “freedom,” and has become a crisis close to everyone’s heart. The voice that says “I’m sick and tired” of violence and conflict is not small. But no one has found the solution. If there is only one way, it may be a nonviolent movement to disarm.
In 1967, a movement to have people disarmed through “nonviolence” began in California. With poet Allen Ginsberg’s ideas and ideals “Flowers, not weapons!” as a watchword, young people stood up against fear and violence, and Beanie Boston was praised for capturing the symbolic moment on camera.
This painting is a close-up of a particularly symbolic part of that photograph, depicting it as “a flower in today’s chaotic world” = “an ideal. The carnation, which he must have clutched tightly for a long time in his struggle with fear, is a little shriveled. The moment when the flower is about to be inserted into the muzzle of a pistol, driven by the ideal, is expressed in a “low-resolution realistic pixel painting.
– Respect for Allen Ginsberg and Bernie Boston. –
12/10/2023(thu) - 20/10/2023(fri)
11:00-17:00※ Open by appointment only on Saturdays.
※ Closed on Sundays and holidays.
Artist in gallery:
October 12, 2023
Please contact us from here for appointment and any further enquiries.