Noriko Maeda

As a calligrapher, my art is to embody the multiplicity of meanings that reside within language through each stroke of the brush. Every word has a resonance, and movement. Every character has its own gravitational point, which draws meaning into itself and projects its own force of meaning outward to those things which surround it.

The art of the calligrapher is not, as might be expected, to clearly and directly prescribe the full meaning of a given word or character: this gives all of the weight of meaning over to the past. The meaning of a word, or of a work of art is never, in itself, fully complete. The language we use always finds itself in the precarious position of waiting on the future to provide it with new and unimaginable interpretations: to fill in the gaps in its meaning.

With calligraphy, I am able to communicate my own personal take on the expression, while leaving traces of incompletion--gaps in meaning-- which leave the work open towards its many layers of future meaning.