Edo Ball

A captivating work of cultural blending unlike anything createdprior, Andrew Archer's Edo Ball must be seen to be believed. Thisseries of paintings seamlessly fuses contemporary basketballimagery with Edo-period Japanese art and culture, with captivating results. Each image riffs on a classic Japanese painting or subject, adding a surprisingly weighty visual twist as Archer'sdeft world-building weaves these disparate visual iconographiesinto a cohesive whole. Often front and center, an NBA personalityis dramatically reimagined and yet recognizable, surroundedby the myriad trappings of the floating¿ world.See Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa reimagined asa court bursting apart at the floorboards and carried forwardby a surge of hundreds of basketballs. A Torii gateway becomesthe backstop for a basketball hoop, with a backdrop of mountainsand a vast, snowy sky. Brief, accompanying texts describe the thematic connections between each painting's convergingthemes, and explore the roles that culture, community, celebrity,and games play in our daily lives.