Description
This japanese demon effigy is a hand-built clay figure finished in red and silver, a bloated grotesque face with a heavy nose, bared lower teeth, and a small hat sealed under melted black wax.
Built by hand from air-dry clay, the surface carries deep creases and a coarse, worked texture across the face and hair. The red pigment settles dark into the recessed folds and pools around the eye apertures, and lifts brighter across the raised brow and cheeks. A metallic silver dry-brush catches the high ridges and the bridge of the nose, with a Japanese seal stamp pressed into one side. At 7.5cm tall, 6cm wide and 7.5cm deep, this freestanding demon effigy works as a one of a kind collector’s piece for a shelf or altar.
Cast as the Tallow Saint, this figure is the collection’s own invention, a minor spirit said to preside over the last of the rendering fires. In the telling it squats at the edge of a cooling hearth and counts the fat as it hardens, growing heavier and redder with each season it sits. The black wax on its hat is meant to be its own slow weeping, set hard before it could run clear.
A small, heavy-faced figure with a presence out of proportion to its size.
