The Art of Wresting: Jeff Hardy Part I

In my Twitter Compilation, I noted that I should look at Jeff Hardy’s new shirt. I forgot to note that he has two of them. I’m going to break it into two articles because both of them are very interesting. The first shirt that came out was named Through Tha Night. I felt like it would be a disservice to throw up a picture of something like Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh even if I think Jeffery Nero Hardy definitely had inspiration from him. You don’t compare anything to one of the greatest pieces of art ever. One nit I’m going to pick that is not related to the design is the name. If you’re going to spell The funky, why not shorten Through to Thru? Jeff could have gone with Nigh to wrap up the name. It was bugging me. I had to say it. Moving on to the design.

Jeff has decided to go without a design on the rear. There is the 10TNA tag back there but that doesn’t count. I’ve got to admit, going without a design on the back is a plus to me. It makes it feel less like a wrestling shirt which almost always has a catch phrase on the back.

The design is on the front and it appears to be an adapted painting of his own. He signed it in the lower right hand side which is the only reason I knew his middle name. His signature looks like a version of a shark or some type of fish with two fins. I was trying to discern his initials so here’s my theory. You can argue the back and face of the fish is a J. I’d then say that the fin is an N. For some reason or another, though I can’t spot an H. Maybe the inside of the J but I’m not buying it.

The focal point of Jeff’s design looks like it is a caricature of himself that has a bit of a stained glass feel because of the dark outline that is mostly black. The remainder of the painting doesn’t have a dark border until the edge of the painting. He has his purple and blue hair flowing at the top right hand side of the painting. “Jeff” has paint on his face that is in orange. He has a almond sliver eye that is white with blue tinting around the outside. The blue pops up again in his neck then further down in his arms. It looks like an abstract set of veins to me. The arm shown reaches to the other side of the shirt but is cut short before the hands. I believe the hands show up above and below the arm though. On the top, there is a webbed blue shape the it topped at each crest of the wave with a white ovular area that is a finger nail. Below the the arm, the colors are darker but it is the same design.

There is not much design that I see as belonging with the person presented as I do. Between the hands and the body, he has waves that some what echo the shape of hands but there seems to be no rhyme or reason for them. Orange and lighter green runs above and below the arm. Above the arm contains a couple of blue green rivers, one of which connects with the forehead. For some reason there is a blob of light blue below it that terminates near the point of the nose. A dark blue blob shows up directly below the nose which seems forced. Below the chin, is a dark blue field that is lighter than what is under the nose but dark enough to contrast with the baby blue. A similar pattern appears three times below the arm. The one pattern is engulfed by the purple color and almost forms what could look like a mouth.

This conglomerate of shapes helps to bring down the quality of the art. But I don’t think in the least bit changes the value of the shirt. It’s one of the freshest shirts I’ve seen in a long time. I like the quality of shirts for CM Punk but it’s stealing designs from the city of Chicago. I could even cite the older version of Jeff Hardy’s shirt which was a rip off of Andy Warhol. This shirt is Jeff’s handy work. I like the colors, the contrasts even if I think it doesn’t make me think of the night. -Kevin

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