Ko-Kyo (昂響）

熊 戯 鮭遡上図 Bear at Play with Returning Salmon Acrylic on Canvas with Tatami Mat 45x 90cm

“Dazzlingly bright—life in which the divine dwells and flows.”

This work imagines young Atlantic salmon from Iceland and a young Ezo brown bear from Japan playing together in the same river. In 2025, I learned that Atlantic salmon had returned to spawn in Reykjavík after the removal of a hydroelectric dam, while in Hokkaido rising river temperatures have contributed to declining salmon returns.

In Ainu culture, the brown bear is regarded as a powerful divine being, yet bears increasingly struggle as salmon and other food sources decline.

I imagined a world in which these natural cycles remain in balance: vigorous Icelandic salmon swimming upstream beside an innocent Ezo brown bear, rendered through the visual language of traditional Japanese ink painting.