KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY is pleased to announce the opening of Mori Nana’s solo exhibition, Nucleus, on Saturday, October 6th.

Mori Nana, who grew up in a family of professional calligraphers, has been deepening her expression with Japanese ink and brush at Tokyo University of the Arts, Department of Fine Arts, Intermedia Art, and will be presenting her solo exhibition for the first time after completing her master's course in 2016.

Since her early childhood, Mori had been interested in how her father would pick a certain work as “work” amongst the numerous other calligraphies he had written. The criteria, unable to explain logically,  was yet something felt absolutely certain. She had thought such criteria is in the nucleus of all elements.

In China, calligraphy has been valued for its deeply artistic merit as one of the six ancient arts. In Japan, however, it has undergone its own transformation. During the Meiji Period, with the introduction of Western art theory, the debate on where to position the art of calligraphy emerged, with passionate discussions on the ingrained dichotomy of image versus language that occurs in the discipline. Modern calligraphers in Japan, through trial and error, create work that delves into both dimensions of this art form—an Asian tradition inherited from ancient times as well as an exploration in the differences compared to Western art which emerged on the scene after the Meiji Period.

Mori Nana describes calligraphy as “A medium that has the power to channel the potential energy of an individual.” During the artist’s creative process, she pays attention to her state of mind, while scribbling with ink for hours at a time, preparing to create calligraphy. A unique piece of art, in which strokes were repeated as many times as necessary for the line to become defined in her physicality. Depending on the relationship amongst ink, paper, brush, water, and climate, the section first touched by the brush appears as the very top of the image. In other words, it can perhaps be said that it is an intrinsically time-based art discipline, where both “the moment” and “continuity” are enclosed in a single stroke.

Transcending the conscious and the subconscious, a moment in which one surpasses the boundary of the body. Or perhaps, an opportunity illustrated when conditions such as climate, mind and location come together in harmony. The multifacetedness of the phenomena is expressed not only within the extent of the artwork but also multidimensionally through the arrangement of the exhibition space.

We are looking forward to kindly welcoming you at Mori Nana’s first solo exhibition.