Howie Tsui's Asian/Western horror paintings

Ottawa artist Howie Tsui paints fantastical, evil, and beautiful landscapes of monsters, ghosts, demons, and deities. He tells me that his new large paintings, "Horror Fables," are in the form of Ming Dynasty scrolls and were influenced by "a variety of dark subjects, including Asian ghost stories, Buddhist hell scrolls, Hong Kong vampire films, neo-conservative propaganda, and twentieth-century genocides such as the Nanking massacre." Howie Tsui

• [Secret_Life_of_Plants]

  I recognize that Octopus from Hokusai’s “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” and some of the other monsters from works by Toriyama Sekien. I expect “copied” or “appropriated” are better words than “influenced by”.

• [Anonymous]

  Love Howie’s art. Doesn’t everyone draw from Buddhist Hell Scrolls?

  http://www.moirahahn.com/images/paintings/03-05/10.jpg

• [ju2tin]

  I expect “copied” or “appropriated” are better words than “influenced by”.

  Hey, it’s not copying, it’s a mash-up!

• [FutureNerd]

  I think the goggles on this one make it look more like a peloscopus, although they don’t telescope.

• [Takuan]

  not quite
  http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/Hokusai.jpg

• [Anonymous]

  “a variety of dark subjects, including Asian ghost stories, Buddhist hell scrolls, Hong Kong vampire films, neo-conservative propaganda, and twentieth-century genocides such as the Nanking massacre.”

  Oh my.

  Which one of these things isn’t like the others?

  For heaven’s sake.

• [dculberson]

  So just because it’s an octopus, it’s appropriated? I think lots of people have painted octopi before.

  It’s similar to, but not identical to, the one you named. Did you look at them side by side? I could spot a lot of differences.

  (And it’s not a “mashup” because he actually painted this; it’s not just a cut and pasted monstrosity.)

• [Secret_Life_of_Plants]

  I love mash-ups and collages and montages and remixes and appropriation art. I just think that people should give credit.

• [Darren Garrison]

  1.) Great art, horrible Flash web site

  2.) Here’s an example of a “Buddhist hell scroll”: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Hellscroll.jpg

• [Anonymous]

  looks like would have been the result had Hieronymus Bosch been born on the other side of the planet.

• [hsaussy]

  Probably a likelier source is Masami Teraoka, especially his ukiyo-e parodies from the early 80s:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masami_Teraoka

• [Anonymous]

  Which one of these things isn’t like the others?

  For heaven’s sake.
  You’re right, Hong Kong vampire movies are nowhere near as dark as all that other stuff, they’re usually comedies.