My interpreted painting is ‘Dancing Mutants’, written by Hernando R. Ocampo, c.1917. Ocampo was born in Santa Cruz, Manila. His parents were Emilio Ocampo and Saltiero and Delfina Ruiz and Santo. He originally studied law, commerce and creative writing, and worked as a writer before he taught himself the visual arts. I liked the painting because he included a diverse colour palette but focused mainly on reds and greens which are complementary colours and stand out. Moreover he used unique shapes that made the painting stand out and portray a powerful message about the horrors of war and the Hiroshima bombings.

In my own response, I used the numbers 140,000 and 809. The number 140,000 shows the amount of deaths from the bombing of Hiroshima. Additionally the number 809 shows the distance(In km) between the location of the bombing to my house back in Tokyo. For my painting I also made a semi circle outline which resembles the radioactive waves and the smoke from the bombs. I changed the surface of the painting by using paint and stencilling. I made the surface a red and yellow gradient because I believed that those colours resembled war, violence and cruelty. I also used my stencils and changed the colour slightly into a darker shade because I thought that these numbers were hiding in the shades of the war. This is meant to highlight that no one at the time truly realised how many people were dying, because they were preoccupied with taking over a country. When I was thinking about how it would connect to me I remembered what my great-grandparents were facing during World War 2 and they were also affected by the bombs. This affected me because it changed how I view the world in terms of during war.