WILD MYTHOLOGIES: New Paintings by Taurus Burns

Taurus Burns' new series, Panthers in Paradise, channels the dreamlike intensity of Henri Rousseau’s jungle fantasies…

Burns' new series - lush, surreal, and filled with metaphor - replaces the European gaze with something more confrontational and deeply personal. Where Rousseau imagined tropical idylls from afar, Burns dives inward, giving shape to the specters of Black identity, environmental erasure, and resistance.  Each panther in this series becomes a stand-in for survival and transformation. 

Mandrill In The Jungle (1909) by Henri Rousseau
Oil on canvas, 9.5 × 7.5 inches

Exotic Landscape (1908) by Henri Rousseau
Oil on canvas, 45.5 × 35 inches

Where Rousseau projected his gaze outward, Burns turns inward - into histories both personal and political. His panthers don’t just inhabit the landscape; they define it, reclaiming the jungle as a metaphor for the complexity of the Black experience and the quiet violence of being seen yet misunderstood.

Henri Rousseau’s jungle paintings - works long admired for their dreamlike beauty but equally defined by their strangeness and psychological tension present imagined jungles, teeming with foliage and exotic life, but humming with quiet menace as predators lurk in the brush, and human presence feels fragile, even misplaced.

The Dream (1910) by Henri Rousseau (detail)
Oil on canvas, 80.5 × 117.5 inches

Burns takes that unease further. His jungle is not a fantasy of escape, but a charged terrain of survival, power, and ancestral memory. Rendered in a stark grayscale palette, each panther becomes a sentinel of rage and resilience. The recurring character Zebra Mane - a striped, feline humanoid figure - acts as both protector and protagonist, confronting the viewer with teeth bared, eyes wide, always watching.

Like Rousseau, Burns uses the jungle as stage, but here it’s charged with ancestral memory, coded rage, and layered symbolism.  This new body of work invites the viewer to consider the jungle not as fantasy, but as metaphor for the complexity of the Black psyche - resilient, watchful, and never tamed.

Author: MELANNIE CHARD

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