Samsara No.45

 Throughout the three year Fine Art degree course at Central Saint Martin's College, I have been developed studio work that are mainly has connection both visually and conceptually, with animals.

Reason why I choose animals for main theme of my work is because of my personal interest and some experience from my childhood.
Also I got the idea of my work from my religious belief about Buddhism.

In Buddhism, they preaches about equality of life.
When I start creating those works, I have influenced by eastern philosophy, which advocates equality of life value between human and animal.

I have been aware of how animal is treated in a modern society.
I found that most of people tend to think that animals are subhuman creatures. and most of them have various preconceived idea of animal life.
Therefore, for this reason I'm  trying to change audience’s idea of animals by creating the collages.

There are symbolic aspects on my photo collage.
I use animals as religious icon such as saints or angels.

Especially in eastern culture, animals are worshipped as deities in some society.
In Japanese religion, Shinto, there are many kinds of deities that are hybrid of human-animal.

I presume I have not distinguished animals from human beings because of my cultural background.