Of all kinds of bizarre art flourishing in the world out there, this must be the most unbelievable: an artistic bear making paintings with his paws! What’s even more unbelievable is that the paintings are selling for 4000 Euros! So this incredibly talented animal is Juuso, a 17 year old, 930 pound brown bear who lives at the Predator Center animal sanctuary in the northern Finnish town of Kuusamo and uses his body, especially his paws as paintbrushes. His keepers discovered his talent when they found him playing with paint while redoing some of the facilities at their center, and since then he’s been catapulted to celebrity status in the world of art enthusiasts. Juuso favours blue and red colours, said Pasi Jantti, one of his keepers, adding that the paints used posed no health risk to the bear. The keepers at the Predator Center actually raised about 8,000 euros ($8,500) by selling 15 of his paintings. According to them, he’s quite the temperamental artist—if you ask him to do something, he won’t budge an inch. But if you just leave paint, plywood and paper lying around, the great brown bear Juuso happily paints away, “sitting and moving his legs on the paper.” And now an exhibition of his artworks is opening at the Rupla gallery in Helsinki, featuring 11 pieces of original work, with some prints priced from 50 to 4,000 euros. Some of the paintings still feature bits of Juuso’s fur. Funds raised from the exhibition will be used to make a documentary about bears. What’s more, you can even the incredible artist live, creating his little world of art. Now isn’t that quite a treat.
