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SHUNSUKE SAWAGUCHI

While there is much diversity in contemporary art, I am seeking a strong expression using just paper and pen. On 'Genko yoshi,' Japanese calligraphy paper, originally a stage for expressing words, I have drawn what has not become words. The essential part of the work does not have a meaning. It is not an act of expressing oneself, but more similar to a child's doodling. I am interested in the child's point of view. Each unit of my work may be small but, when put together, it produces power. And because of its form, it can be carried anywhere around the world in one suitcase.

Sawaguchi was born in Miyagi prefecture, Japan, in 1968. He studied graphic design at Musashino Art University in Tokyo until 1991, and he now lives and works in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture.

Genko-yoshi is Japanese maniscript paper, on which all literary writing was set down until the advent of the word processor. With the same care with which they chose their pens, writers often had their favorite brand of this paper.  In Japanese literary archives,  many famous texts are preserved on genko-yoshi , which reveals the traces of erasure and correction that the word processor would simply delete. Manuscript paper is also familiar to every Japanese student, who has used it to compose classroom essays on "My Memory of a Trip" or "The Book I Read During Summer Vacation." The use of genko-yoshi, which is formatted for vertical writing, is strictly regulated. In Sawaguchi's works, genko-yoshi serves as a vehicle not for traditional letters, but for forms or formations produced, he says, "not in an act of 'expressing' oneself, but more like a child's doodling."