VANITAS, WABI SABI AND The Fragility of Life.

Hiroshi Hayakawa, a Japanese-born artist, has developed a unique artistic voice through his drawings that are both realistic and rich with symbolic meaning. Despite not having a formal art education in Japan, Hayakawa pursued his passion for art after meeting contemporary Japanese artists and realizing that being a professional artist was a possibility. His drawings, influenced by the Japanese aesthetics of wabi sabi and 17th-century Dutch paintings known as "Vanitas," explore themes of beauty, fragility, and the impermanence of life. Hayakawa's meticulous process involves photography, sketching, and creating composite images before rendering his drawings in graphite with thousands of tiny strokes. His drawings often feature female figures as symbols of earthly pleasure and beauty, accompanied by traditional symbols of mortality. The resulting artworks are visually stunning and invite contemplation of symbolic relationships. Hayakawa has exhibited his work widely and currently teaches at Columbus College of Art and Design. In addition to his drawings, he has also published books on making paper animals. [Extracted from the article]