Description
This hososhi oni effigy is a freestanding clay head finished in weathered silver over black, with four protruding eyes and a single horn breaking from the brow. The silver catches every ridge of the gnarled surface while deep black settles into the recesses.
Built by hand from air-dry clay, the surface is a dense mass of folds and raised ridges where the silver drybrush sits brightest, thinning to bare grey on the rounded eyeballs and the horn tip. Black pools in the deep channels and around the drilled pupils, and a wet gloss sits over the highest points while the recesses stay matte, so the head reads darker in shadow and flares brighter where light rakes across the texture. Each eye is a separate pressed sphere set with a bored pupil, fine cracks run through the clay where it has dried and weathered, and the mouth grimaces over a row of blunt teeth. It stands 9cm high, 8.5cm wide and 9cm deep, a freestanding display piece sized for a shelf or curio cabinet. A one of a kind handmade sculpture and a genuine collector’s piece.
In Japanese folklore the Hōsōshi was a court exorcist whose four golden eyes let him see in every direction at once, so no spirit could hide in the corners while he drove pestilence from the palace on New Year’s Eve. Over time the protector was feared as a demon himself, and the two-eyed oni of Setsubun is his simplified descendant. This hososhi oni effigy casts him at the end of that turn, the exorcist sealed and mummified into the very thing he once hunted.
Sealed and ready to watch over a darkened shelf from all four corners at once.
