'Kappa' by Jim Burns

Title:	'Kappa'
Date Created:	2018
Copyright:	© (c)Jim Burns
Genre:	Unpublished Art
Mediums:	Graphite Pencil
Views:	674
Posted:	12/7/2018

Projects: I have a few quite large-scale projects currently in progress.Some are commissions whilst others are personal. Of these latter, one is based on a Keats poem -�'Isabella, or The Pot of Basil' and which I'm calling 'Poor Lorenzo', another called 'Song to the Moon' and which is inspired by the story of Rusalka and in particular the Dvorak opera of that name. A third personal piece is based on the song 'The Garden of Jane Delawney' by late 1960s English electric folk group, Trees. Commissions include a large piece based on A Game of Thrones and also a 'SpaceBabe' painting for a U.S. collector. Some pencil work - drawings of mythological creatures are underway..steadily building up a collection of those. I'm moving slowly away from commercial work - which was mostly bookjacket work in my case - as this territory has been commandeered largely by a brilliant new generation of 'digitally savvy' artists..and whilst I do the occasional digital piece my preference is for painting and in particular I'd like to produce more, large scale personal paintings - wiith maybe a shift away from acrylics on board towards oils on canvas. My retrospective collection 'The Art of Jim Burns: Hyperluminal' was published in the UK by Titan Books in Septemebr 2014.

A Kappa (�River Child�) is a mischievous, sometimes malevolent amphibious demon or imp from Japanese folklore. There is a large variety of forms of the creature but it�s usually depicted with a turtle-like shell on its back and a strange, bowl-like depression on its head which holds water. This is the source of the Kappa�s power. When away from water, if this spills or dries out, the Kappa loses its power and may even die.