Tale Of Urashima

My latest piece. I created this for this illustration competition held in UK for students and emerging artists.

The only instruction was this;

"Tree time is much longer than human time. From a long time ago -

to the present day. We invite you to illustrate stories which may come from the past but have familiar and current themes; that have relevance to both ancient and very modern contemporary experience."

So I picked an old Japanese tale called Urashima Taro.

It's about a fisherman called Urashima who is rewarded for a rescuing a turtle with a visit to the palace under the sea. He stays there for 3 days and upon his return to his village, finds himself hundreds of years in the future. At the end Urashima opens a gift box which suddenly makes him 100 years old.

In my illustration, I depicted the moment where Urashima comes back to the future, which is our contemporary time, where big tsunami is just about to hit Japan. He opens a gift box that brings him back to his fantasy world that shelters him from the disaster and reality.

I included some symbolism which I am not going to explain everything here, but I hope this piece is going help people ponder about various things and remember about the victims of the Pacific Tsunami of 3.11.2011.