WORKS

Sisyu seeks to create calligraphy whose words continually bestow their blessings simply by being displayed. In Japan, there is a concept called kotodama, the spirit of words. Since ancient times, people have believed that words possess spiritual power. To instill that spirit in written characters, she believes she must go beyond reaching the human heart and approach each work with the resolve of making an offering to the gods and the Buddha. Inconvenience deepens spirituality. She deliberately distances herself from information, limits convenience, and imposes restrictions on herself. When creating, she leaves the city, switches off her computer and mobile phone, and concentrates on the tip of her brush, facing only her calligraphy. She also practices restraint in daily life and eats shojin ryori, the vegetarian cuisine of Buddhist monks, to strengthen her concentration. Everything is directed toward a state in which the blessings of words flow endlessly from a single completed sheet of calligraphy.

In Western oil painting, thousands upon thousands of brushstrokes build the background and principal subject, bringing a work to completion. Japanese painting and calligraphy, by contrast, have treasured the beauty of blank space, intentionally leaving the background unpainted. Yet this economy of means can sometimes be seen as incompleteness when judged by the standards of Western painting. Sisyu began a new challenge: intervening in that traditional blank space. On washi handmade by a Living National Treasure, she builds a background through repeated brushwork. What was once an empty space becomes a space imbued with profound resonance. She then draws lines with ink she has blended herself, adapting traditional techniques. A single stroke acquires a depth that seems to contain many layers of brushwork. This is a new realm of calligraphy in which the background has strength and presence while preserving the beauty of empty space. By bringing together the structure of Western painting and the spirituality of the East, a new beauty emerges, resonating with contemporary spaces in both East and West.

In Japanese painting, an unpainted or lightly worked background suggests distant space. In Western painting, by contrast, a background built up with thousands of layers of paint creates depth and distance. This reversal in methods of depiction and spatial expression is a major divide between Japanese and Western art, and an obstacle to understanding Japanese expression in Europe. Moreover, the blank space prized in Japanese art can imply incompleteness by Western standards. To bridge these aesthetics through calligraphy, Sisyu deliberately breaks with the Japanese tradition of leaving the background unpainted and constructs the background itself. Drawing on the gold-ground techniques of the Renaissance, she builds layers across the entire work. To incorporate the solidity of Western painting, she combines four elements: ink, gold, silver, and sulfur. Finally, to move beyond the traditions of calligraphy, she burns the work. Each piece takes months to create, as she consults old texts, searches for lost techniques, and builds successive layers. Grounded in the spirituality of Japanese calligraphy, she incorporates Western painting techniques and a final burning process to transcend established concepts of writing. From this process emerges a new aesthetic realm: Otherworldly Calligraphy.