Oni Landscape: Nebulous Beings are a series made for a show in Osaka, Japan and are based on Japanese "oni" or ogre. While my original drawings were studies of traditional oni, these images have evolved enough over time that most Japanese would have trouble recognizing them as such.
Up until now I have done mostly figurative work, focusing on the human form - generally faces. Working with directly observed subjects I have often found the drawings to be too constrictive. There were too many guidelines dictating what would be in the drawing and in what proportion. Changing the subject to beings of fantasy I found the lines lightened up and gave a freshness to the drawings.
Oni landscape attempts to combine the searching, freedom of line of a sketch with a balance between the rendered image, physical marks and the media itself. I choose to carefully fill in blocks of these wild creatures with bright colors to hold the figures to the page and bring an order to their chaos.