Zodiac Series of Erotica: Dragon

The Dragon in Karhu's Zodiac Erotica series is both the most mythologically charged and the most visually elaborate of the twelve signs — the beast of imperial power and natural forces given an erotic charge in Karhu's irreverent treatment. The series, made in the early 1970s during Karhu's full immersion in Kyoto artistic culture, demonstrates his ease with Japanese visual conventions while retaining a distinctly personal, playful vision. The drawing medium allows for a freedom of line that his woodblocks, with their careful registration, could not provide.