He has a long snout, giant paws — and, for a 1,000-pound bruin, a most discriminating eye for composition. Ten-year-old Juuso, a brown bear that was orphaned as a cub and now lives at the Predator Center animal sanctuary in the northern Finnish town of Kuusamo, is attracting attention not just for his enormous size but also for his amazing talent as an artist.
A video posted online by the sanctuary shows Juuso hard at work at his masterpieces, with his creative juices really flowing as he rolls across his paint-covered canvas. A wooden table acts as his easel, which is a good thing, as we're pretty sure he would crush a typical support with the weight of his body.
"Bears enjoy when they get new things to do, and painting is a nice change," Pasi Jäntti, Juuso's keeper and himself a wood artist, told Refinery29 via email.
More than a dozen pieces "painted" by Juuso were available on the sanctuary's website, with prices ranging from 300 euros ($325) to 2,000 euros ($2,172). All but one had sold as of Wednesday morning, Jäntti said. Interested? You'll have to wait until next spring, when the animal awakens from hibernation, to add a Juuso to your collection. "I think that we [will] make the art in May, when the sun is shining and the snows have melted away," Jäntti said.
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