Rayhan Zain

My inspiration for this painting was dancing mutants but I didn’t really link it to the painting itself, more of the same type of backstory that led to the painting. Dancing mutants was made by Hernando R Campo in 1965. His motive for this painting was watching a movie about nuclear war and the after effect and being fascinated by what nuclear radiation can do to humans.

The idea of nuclear mutations made him paint this abstract piece of work that has 3 mutated humanoid figures. The way that my painting links to the one made by Hernando R Campo is that mine is also made from a memory which interested me: it was when I went to Japan for the first time and went cycling around blossom trees. When I saw the blossom trees, I didn’t believe that they were real because I never thought that a tree could be such a nice shade of pink.

I made sure to try and replicate this warm pink and use it in my background. In my painting, the tree is coming through a circle and is set at an angle. I then put my number 3 just below the tip of the tree to form a bicycle shape as that is one of the key parts of the memory. The reason I used the number 3 is because blossom trees in Japan generally come around in March and sometimes April, March being the third month in the year. This is also another link to the painting as Dancing Mutants has 3 mutated people.