Juichi Yoshikawa
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 calligraphist, or sho artist, who studied calligraphy formally under Inamura Undo, and later with Ueda Sokiu. Yoshikawa's avant garde trademark "three and a half dimensions" style applies observation as the additional dimension. To an untrained observer, this approach might be characterized as artistic flamboyance known by the use of giant brushes and stadium-sized canvases - or, as in the large 1990 Beijing installation, by almost completely covering the 5,000 square metres of Tiananmen Square.

Yoshikawa's work has been presented throughout Japan, China, and the Middle East, and he is the author of a 1993 French publication on his form, Sho.

He has collaborated several times with the lyricist, Chris Mosdell
Chris Mosdell
Chris Mosdell is a British lyricist, poet, author, composer, vocalist and illustrator, based in Tokyo, Japan, and Boulder, Colorado, USA.He has worked with a wide range of Japanese musicians and artists—the documentary Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist bills him as the...

, illustrating what are essentially poetic works with experimental calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

. The first collection,
Shake the Whole World To Its Foundations (2001 Shichosha Publishing), is an epic rhythmical chant densely type-set on the page with delicate and often simple brush-stroke accompaniments. The second publication, The Erotic Odes: A Pillow Book, couples verse by Mosdell with digitally stylized erotic shunga
Shunga
' is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format. While rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate the Ukiyo-e movement...

woodcut prints from the Edo Era overlaid with sensual calligraphy and ink-seepage creations by Yoshikawa. A full-color edition, originally published by Libroport in 1997, was fully color-enhanced and re-printed in 2008 by Seigensha Publishing.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK