司淳 TSUKASA JUN 狐面 Kitsune men (Fox Mask) 第1回に続いて第2回絵師100人展にも参加させていただけて凄く嬉しいです！今回のテーマは「日本の四季」という事で、本っ当〜に悩みました(汗)。でも悩んでいる間中ずっと脳内にあったのは狐のお面と浴衣（夏祭りのイメージ）と狐火でした。それを僕なりにどう料理するかでずっと悩んでいたのです。現実感の薄い夏祭り、森の中にひっそりと立つ鳥居と蛍の光のような狐火など、最後までどうしようか悩んだのですが、狐といえば僕の中で"狐の嫁入リ"と伏見稲荷のイメージが強かったので、これらをミックスした背景に仕上げました。 もちろん絵の千本鳥居は伏見稲荷ではなく、異界に通じる"門"として描いています。狐面の少女の後ろには狐の嫁入りの行列…狐の面を取って無言で振り返る少女は「これ以上ついて来ると帰れなくなるよ」と眼で警告しているかのようです。光る目でこちらを見ている狐面の方はこつちへおいでと誘っているようですが♪ I am delighted to have been invited to take part in both the first and now the second Eshi 100 Exhibitions! The theme this year is ‘The Four Seasons of Japan’ and I found it difficult to make up my mind what to draw (-_-;). However, all the time I was thinking about it I had an image in the back of my mind of a fox mask, yukata kimono (summer festivals) and foxfire. The problem was how to express these in my own way. A dreamlike festival... a torii shrine gateway standing in a forest, surrounded by foxfire resembling the light of fireflies... I could not make up my mind what to do, but my main images of foxes were the ‘foxes wedding procession’ and the Inari Shrine in Fushimi so in the end I decided to mix these two to create the background. Naturally the 1,000 torii in the rear of the scene are not really those belonging to the Inari Shrine, they are the gateway to another world. We can see the foxes' wedding procession behind the girl... she has removed her mask and is looking back with a warning in her eye, as if to say, ‘if you come any further, you will be unable to return’. The fox mask with the shining eyes is looking our way as if inviting us into its world.