THE NARUTO SERIES

Ethan first learned about the Japanese creation myth of Izanami and Izanagi in college from a surfer/Eastern philosophy major buddy and it stuck with him ever since. In this myth, a god and goddess stand on a heavenly bridge overlooking an infinite ocean of nothingness, and the god Izanagi uses a spear to stir the water and create whirlpools. When Izanagi raises the spear tip, the drops of water splash and spontaneously turn into the islands of Japan. Scholars agree that this story is inspired by the tidal whirlpools that occur regularly in the Naruto Strait. Ethan’s Naruto Series seeks to juxtapose the divine quality of water to give life with plastic pollution’s ability to take the lives of marine wildlife. One of the core insights Ethan developed from visiting the Naruto whirlpools was how the water eddied and swirled in all three dimensions, and he sought to expand on his two dimensional Uzumaki explorations by creating layers of current with the Naruto Series.

"Naruto No. 1" (2026) 35 inches wide x 24 inches tall x 4 inches deep.