"Flower" by Tomomi Kunishige
Mainichi: Zen and the art of writing English kanji
At first glance, calligrapher Tomomi Kunishige produces scroll art different from traditional Chinese lettering only by their added smidgen of flamboyance. A much closer look, though, reveals that what seems to be only Chinese lettering is actually artwork spelling out English words written in a way that gets them to form the shape of the character. Kunishige calls her work Eikanji -- literally English kanji -- and she's fast make a name for herself in Japan's art world, according to Shukan Bunshun. "I got the idea for Eikanji in my student days when I was writing the English word 'truth' in Chinese calligraphy style and noticed when I'd finished that what I'd come up with looked remarkably close to the characters 'shinjitsu (Japanese for 'truth'),'" Kunishige tells Shukan Bunshun. "This was the first time I'd really discovered kanji could look like English. Since then, I've made all sorts of different discoveries about them"...more...
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