Benten Kozō
Price range: $39 through $125
Irezumi / Japanese Tattoo / Benten Kozo / Kabuki
Benten Kozō is perhaps one of the most famous heroes of the Kabuki stage. In the play “Aoto Zôshi Hana no Nishikie”, there is a famous scene in which Benten Kozō, disguised as a beautiful woman, reveals his true identity by showing his Irezumi tattoo. For many years, Senju has played with this confusion over Benten Kozō’s gender in several prior artworks. What if Benten Kozō’s success as a cross dressing thief is due to the fact that in reality he is not a man, but rather a woman posing as a man that subsequently becomes successful posing as a female? This further established by Benten Kozō’s tattoo, which depicts the cunning and shapeshifting fox. The sakura, cherry blossoms, are a reminder of his/hers heroic qualities as a person. Applying this line of thought opens up endless possibilities for interesting art to be created around this theme.
The “Irezumi Bijinga” series of paintings is a collection of beautiful women adorned with Irezumi tattoos. For this project, Senju is drawing not only on his painting skills and his more than 20 years of deep studies of Japanese culture and art. He also lets his more than 30 years experience as a tattoo artist come into play. To see another Senju print that would match this, please go here
This standard edition is limited to 50 signed, numbered and stamped copies in each size and is printed on premium 230 gsm matt proffessional paper using the highest quality printers.
