In Studio Ghiblis’ “Princess Mononoke” Nago, the corrupted boar god, is possessed by, and ultimately consumed with rage. It turns out the humans living nearby are to blame for this. They shot Nago with an iron bullet causing its fury and destruction. I see the tale as a metaphor of the way we humans treat nature and the problems that we cause for ourselves by doing so.

It got me thinking about the raw emotion of rage in general and how it seems to eat up things from the inside like a great storm. These ideas inspired the piece. I combined aggressive, bold letters and wild interweaving strokes with my own version of Nago. As a tribute to a raw emotion, to Nago and the tale of Princess Mononoke.

The piece is a calligram, it combines illustration with lettering and shapes an image out of the letters. The illustration was made with obsessive attention to details, the strokes giving it a wild rhythm.

Screen shot from the vector process. The illustration is highly complex in order for the viewer to be drawn into the artwork.