Jukumari (Oil on Canvas)

Jukumari
Oil on canvas, 4 ft tall

The Jukumari is a mythic figure from Bolivian folklore, half bear, half human, known for drinking llama milk and wandering between worlds. I wanted to bring that story forward, to give it a body and scale that couldn’t be ignored. At four feet tall, the creature stares back with kaleidoscopic eyes, somewhere between terrifying and mesmerizing.

This painting was selected for exhibition at UNCW, where I thought of it less as a myth illustrated than as a myth embodied, something alive in paint, carrying both fear and fascination.