Don Ed Hardy’s lithographs, created in the spring of 2007, continue the “look” of his Ghost Writer painting series which has been developed over the past five years. They are evocative of ancient Chinese stone rubbings, or x-rays. Both prints refer to earlier images from Japanese art history.
Floater State II, a meditating skeleton poised above surging waves, was done from memory after a 19th century Japanese painting. It reflects the classic Japanese themes of life’s transience and cheerful macabre humor, as well as making reference to the notion of our earthly existence as a “floating world” that is always subject to ebbs, flows, and sudden changes.