Mermaid Slaughterhouse 🧜‍♀️ Fish Leather as Fine Art

IKU-TURSO

A powerful, malevolent primordial sea monster, ancient water spirit, and occasional war deity or disease demon. Also called Tursas, Turso, Turisas, Meritursas. "Iku" means eternal, around since the beginning of time.

Tursas is supposedly an old word for walrus too. Turisas shows up in Mikael Agricola's 1551 list of Finnish gods. Therefore we can come to the conclusion that walruses are gods. 🦭

The Kalevala also mentions Iku-Turso: Louhi sends it after Väinämöinen. Väinämöinen catches it and makes it swear off hurting humans. That's how it became a protective being. Its symbol, the tursaansydän, used to get carved into old Finnish houses for protection.

Reddit calls it the fat Cthulhu.

65 × 74 cm 🌀
Ready to hang
Self-made fish leather 🐟
Locally sourced pigments 🌿
Finnish laser-cut plywood
Hay 🌾
Jute twine

Part of the Virta (The Flow) series, available 😘

First 📸 by @spadvemmy