On Friday, 21 May opened the Calligraphy exhibition by the artist TEN-YOU.

Minister-counsellor Junzo Fujita welcomed the artist in a speech and then TEN-YOU explained about her art.

Her art is based on the ancient characters that are thought to have evolved into modern day kanji. The Japanese characters “kanji” originally derive from Chinese characters. These characters were originally pictographs, meaning an inscription (of bone) that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical, like" 木 " for 'wood' and" 目 " for 'eye'. These characters then underwent a series of changes leading to the characters in use in Japan today. TEN-YOU specializes in the drawing of these unique, original characters. She has exhibited in New Zealand, Tokyo, France, New York and Barcelona.

 

TEN-YOU and her assistant demonstrates how the first Chinese characters were pictures. TEN-YOU is holding a paper with the historical character for person (top) that later evolved into the modern character for person (bottom) while her assistant is demonstrating with her body.

TEN-YOU uses her art to show emotions and feelings. She asked volunteers from the audience to draw a line and demonstrated how different lines are, when they are drawn by different people.

 

She then demonstrated how she expresses her emotion by drawing. Here she is drawing wind, as the first thing she noticed about Denmark is wind.