39. Chris Horishiki Brand - Monkey King
This is a depiction of the monkey king. He’s known in Japanese mythology as Son Gokū. He originally comes from the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, where he is known as Sun Wukong. Along with his legendary fighting skills and immense strength, his Daoist supernatural powers give him the ability to change shape. In stage plays, woodblock prints, television shows and tattoos, the telling and retelling of his story has been done for generations. It was this collector’s fondness for the very loosely-based retelling in the popular contemporary Japanese cartoon Dragon Ball that led to this piece being completed.
