In her delightfully bizarre Octopus Portrait, Yumiko Utsu combines an octopus, a common ingredient in Japanese cuisine, with a Victorian-era portrait painting. The head of the sitter is cunningly replaced with an upside down octopus, its arms precisely placed to resemble eyes and a hairdo. Utsu draws inspiration from the highly influential Czech animator Jan Švankmajer whose surreal films use food as a metaphor for sexual desire. Utsu’s works have been exhibited internationally and are held in various collections, including the Charles Saatchi Collection, London and the Jean Pigozzi Collection, Geneva.