Sun Wu Kong, 2023 Original Painting

16x20” gouache painting on arches paper. Included with a gold frame. One of the paintings from the Twelve Nights On Heaven's Headrest, created for the 2023 Bassetti Architects Artist Residency and exhibited at the Kristen Ramirez gallery in Museum of Museums in 2023. The troublemaking Monkey King born from stone, practiced in divine magic, and beholding a magical staff - The Dragon lord’s treasured weapon. The night that Sun Wu Kong was meant to die, he fell asleep. In his dreams, he was taken by two soul collectors to the kingdom of death to face the two options of reincarnation, or torture of the 10 courts of hell. Refusing to settle between these two choices, Sun Wu Kong used his magical staff to fight the ten death lords. The lords were met with such resistance that they had never encountered from a mortal before. This confused them deeply, so they went to consult the Book of Death and Life, a tome of every living soul’s death. While the lords searched through the pages to find him