The Transformation of Things

Description

I drew this as part of a local comic art show at Wild Goose Creative called Comics vs Art IV: The Gods Have Spoken. The theme of the show was to re-interpret as comics well-known works of art that represented religious/spiritual iconography.

This piece was based on Ike no Taiga's famous painting Dreaming of a Butterfly, which in turn was an interpretation of this passage from the writings of Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi.

I hadn't heard of Zhuangzi or the numerous pieces of art inspired by its "Butterfly Dream" passage, and the idea of the subjectivity of reality and dreams struck me. I tried to capture the vividness of a dream so immersive as to cause the dreamer—is it the butterfly? or the person?—to forgo their "real" identity. I chose the white butterfly because of its presence in Japanese folklore, and because the original artist (Ike no Taiga) was from Japan.