Cat Gunn
Issue No. 22 • Spring 2021
Cold in the Water
Storm in Heaven
What Love
Artist Statement
My work centers around personal mythologies and cultivating folkloric narratives that relate to sexuality, fetish, and perceptions of femininity. I revolve these mythologies around a cast of icons that exist in the worlds I'm creating: The masked, femme graces that live and play between heaven and hell with their companions (the masked cats, the 'nureonna' or snake-woman, the harpy, and the green human-horse hybrid); the spectating 'jorogumo' or woman-spider, and more recently the pearl divers with the 'yurei' or ghost. I depict scenes and interactions between these characters that are intimate and playful, blurring the lines between relationships that can be perceived as romantic/sexual or platonic. I draw heavily from Japanese folktales, ghost stories, and cinema to create my mythological scenes and use them as launching points to talk about gender and sexuality in relation to my heritage and the perception of the culture. The characters I gravitate towards are often figures who were shunned by their societies or lived through a great loss or trauma, continuing to haunt the places they used to inhabit or called home. Many of the characters I depict in my work come directly from folktales and ghost stories (the ‘nureonna,’ ‘jorogumo,’ ‘yurei,’ and the harpy), and the work I make places these characters in new worlds and contexts in attempts to redeem and honor them.
The narratives in my work are a response to my experiences with gender and sexuality in relation to my Japanese heritage and my upbringing and life within the US. Though I identify as non-binary, I am mostly perceived as a woman and that perception shapes the way I interact within the cis-hetero white patriarchy that predominates the US. Being part of a culture and demographic that’s highly sexualized and fetishized influences my work heavily, and my work is a result of the confusion and pain that I’ve felt in navigating these paradigms. My aim is to present scenes that subvert ideas of gender and sexuality that are often associated with Japanese culture and how it’s perceived. It’s also my attempt to heal from past traumas and gain ownership of my identity.
Artist Bio
Eriko Hattori (they/them) is a Pittsburgh-based artist. Their artwork revolves around their relationship with their Japanese heritage, queer identity, and experiences with their gender identity and how it relates to their heritage.