A Haunting 'Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind' Print By Karl Fitzgerald Is Debuting At Bottleneck Gallery
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind turned 35 last year, but it's never too late to celebrate a stone-cold classic. Hayao Miyazaki's fantasy epic, which would become the inaugural film for the animation titan Studio Ghibli, has a haunting new art print courtesy of artist Karl Fitzgerald, whose work is debuting on Bottleneck Gallery today.
Fitzgerald, known for his dark and moody takes on blockbusters and fantasy epics, turns to two Japanese classics with his new art prints for Bottleneck Gallery: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Seven Samurai.
Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Akiro Kurosawa's Seven Samurai "both intertwine Karl's unmistakable style with dark, moody imagery perfectly representative of the Japanese cornerstone classics. Both films balance on precarious and dangerous conflicts, and Karl's prints seek to portray the overwhelming situations our protagonists find themselves in," the Bottleneck Gallery release teases.
The art print for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind — by far one of the underrepresented Miyazaki film in the art world — is a sight to behold. Rather than depict an actual scene from the 1985 movie, Fitzgerald takes some liberties: showing Nausicaa flying on her glider as she approaches the huge remains of a God Warrior, one of the fearsome creations (and metaphor for nuclear annihilation) that had destroyed the world and left it a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
In Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, we only see the skulls of the God Warriors, with moss and grass growing on it, in passing — until one is later revived for the climactic battle of the movie in a breathtaking sequence famously animated by a young Hideaki Anno, prior to creating Neon Genesis Evangelion. Fitzgerald also takes some liberties with that skull we see of the God Warrior, making his horned helmet look more like an extension of the skeleton in a more high fantasy-oriented version of the fearsome figure. But the effect is haunting, and a must-get for fans of the 1985 animated classic.
The Nausicaa print, and its slightly more expensive variant, is only in limited availability: only 115 editions of the original are available, while there are only 40 of the variant. See the two prints below.
Nausicaä by Karl Fitzgerald
Screen print
24 x 36 inches
Hand-numbered edition of 115
$50
Nausicaä – Variant by Karl Fitzgerald
Screen print
24 x 36 inches
Hand-numbered edition of 40
$60
Meanwhile, you can see Fitzgerald's Odachi prints below. Both are 24 x 36 inches, with the original available in a hand-numbered edition of 100 for $50. Only 50 editions of the variant are available at $60.
Fitzgerald's prints will be available today at 12 P.M. ET at Bottleneck Gallery's homepage.