LA ART SHOW 2016
27th – 31st Jan. 2016
at LA Convention Center / West Hall
KITAI  : booth #808

Artists
Kunio ABE,  Michiyoshi DEGUCHI,  Mizuho KOYAMA,  Sanmu KUNISADA,  Issai TANAKA,  Reiko TSUNASHIMA




Issai Tanaka Live Performance “Beyond KAISHO”

Issai Tanaka writes huge KAISHO – (a printed style of hand written calligraphy) It is supposed that only a giant person can do this. But Issai is a regular man and he writes beautiful huge KAISHO with excellent form on a piece of paper 120 x 120 inches in size.

Commonly in live demonstrations, calligraphers perform in a way similar to action painting and the audience sometimes does not understand the writing or if the letters are correctly formed or not. These events focus more on entertainment and showmanship.

In writing huge KAISHO the calligrapher needs to have bird’s-eye view. There are very few calligraphers who are able to do this. It is even difficult to write common KAISHO without discipline. Issai is about 5-foot, 8-inches in height and 38 years old, a calligrapher with great discipline and more than 30 years of experience. The most important factors in this type of writing are sound technique and a keen sense for visual art.

Issai’s hope is that people throughout the world will get to know Japanese calligraphy and understand its beauty. It is an important contemporary art, not entirely dependent of the actual meaning of the words written. (It also benefits from the fact that all Japanese Kanji characters are innately beautiful in form.)