Meisui Hatano Sumi Art Exhibition"PARAISO"

For the second time around, Meisui Hatano’s “Raku” series takes center stage at the NY
Coo Gallery with an even more radical approach to the art of sho, or Japanese calligraphy.
Her U.S. debut last year surprised unsuspecting viewers with her distinctive cutting edge style that completely overthrows all conventional notions of sho. Her skill in bringing words to life, endowing them with unique character, and stimulating such reactions in people is the gift of a true master calligrapher.

Sho, originating from China, has been studied for thousands of years, and mastering traditional techniques have long been the ultimate goal of calligraphers. Hatano, however, goes against the grain, using sho to express herself in her own way. If anything, her sho can be called anti-traditional, as she forms her characters with the same spontaneous energy found in contemporary art.

Unlike the balanced and flowing strokes found in traditional sho, Hatano’s style is infused with a choppy, irrepressible tension, a sense of urgency reminiscent of abstract expressionist paintings. In her second “Raku” series, Hatano uses the character raku (楽), meaning “fun,” to evoke the bustling essence of New York City. Each painting contains the single character raku, drawn repeatedly in loose strokes until the words blend into abstract pockets of activity that seem to represent throngs of people or fleets of cars. In some, a group of three or four large, ripply raku characters dominate the foreground, giving the paintings the overall effect of the fleeting experience of passing by a group of people on a busy street. Hatano’s choice of a subdued color palette reinforces the buzz of fast-paced New York life well and balances the underlying tension.

Hatano’s exhibition is titled “PARAISO,” Portuguese for paradise, the nonexistent utopia that is a different place for everybody yet has been yearned for the same by all. Amid the multitudes of traditional calligraphers who cast absolute authority over the Japanese sho community today, Hatano seeks her paradise, a conceptual place that recognizes sho as a modern art and her struggle for self-expression through traditional sho.