London-based artist Rhys Brown has recently garnered attention in the art world for his unique and poetic technique, "Vegan Gyotaku." Inspired by the traditional Japanese art of gyotaku, originally used to record catches, Brown transforms this concept and imbues it with a contemporary vocabulary. He uses stuffed toys, particularly teddy bears, as his rubbing subjects. The process of pressing and rubbing the tactile forms onto canvas or paper not only creates the contours and details of the squashed figures but also captures the emotional traces and temporal trajectory inherent in the objects themselves.
Rhys Brown
Lucky Bear 幸運熊, 2026
Ink, oil pastel and acrylic on Lambeth Cartridge 370gsm
70 x 50 cm (27.56 x 19.69 in)
About the artist
Rhys Brown
UK
b. 1993
