Moon Bear - Round and Round the Garden

Medium used – liquid acrylic and gouache

Original – size 71 x 91 cm Sold

Large Print – size 71 x 91 cm with a limited print run of 250

Moon Bear – Round and Round the Garden

This painting has two bears at play – one tickling the other under the arm. The rhyme ‘Round and round the garden, like a Teddy Bear. One step, two step.. tickle you under there!’

In the sky is the constellation of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the common name being the Big Bear and Little Bear. The Chinese writing translates as ‘Black Bear’ and repeated as symbols in the top left.

In the painting, Joanna used the symbol for ‘Black Bear’ rather than ‘Moon Bear’ because the word black in Chinese looks like the cage the bear had to live in. The symbols are repeated in the background as empty cages to signify ‘Freedom for the Bears’. The swirls at the bottom of the painting are very ‘Klimt’ and make it look as if the bears are playing in water bubbles – reminding Joanna of a clip from some footage Animals Asia showed of two bears playing in a tub of bubble bath.

The flowers on the Moon Bears are a combination of seven herbs and shells that can be used as alternative medicine instead of the cruelty of bear bile extraction for the Chinese medicine market.