Eikanji: Chinese characters written with English?
Instead of the normal wacky sex-related jive, today’s Mainichi WaiWai column focuses on art:
At first glance, calligrapher Tomomi Kunishige produces scroll art different from traditional Chinese lettering only by their added smidgen of flamboyance.
A much closer look, though, reveals that what seems to be only Chinese lettering is actually artwork spelling out English words written in a way that gets them to form the shape of the character.
Kunishige calls her work Eikanji — literally English kanji — and she’s fast make a name for herself in Japan’s art world, according to Shukan Bunshun (2/1).
Here’s an example of Eikanji:
Pretty neat, although I probably would see it as only an illegible kanji unless I was told beforehand that it contained English.
For more information on Eikanji, check out this entry at Sushimatic (which happened to break this story 6 months before WaiWai). You can also buy a book of Tomomi Kunishige’s work on Amazon!
