01 September 2000

Far Eastern Flair at Bürkert

In China and Japan Sho dô (the method of writing art) is a highly respected art with a tradition dating back over 3,000 years. Moods and feelings are expressed with an entire scale of watercolour nuances - characters become works of art. In the West artists such as Mirò or Monet took up the Chinese-Japanese calligraphy and utilised it in their works.

Sanae Sakamoto stems from a family of calligraphers, and was born and raised in Tokyo/Japan. Even as a child she received calligraphy lessons from her grandmother Hana Sakamoto, a famous master craftswoman of the Meiji period. Sanae Sakamoto was raised according to Buddhist precepts. She studied Japanese and Chinese literature. In addition to a university degree in Tokyo she also earned the Japanese and Chinese master titles in calligraphy. She has lived in Switzerland since 1971 and teaches as a freelance artist at the School for Design in Basel. She has had many individual exhibitions in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and the USA since 1984.

The exhibition "Painted thoughts - bridges which lead to other worlds" was featured in September and October 2000 at Bürkert in Ingelfingen. Fourteen paper flags as well as 57 smaller images were suspended throughout rooms and corridors in the foyer of the research and development centre. In addition to characters, calligraphy works, modern watercolour paintings, abstract and representational paintings featuring watercolours and delicate colours as well as collages were exhibited. The art from Sanae Sakamoto goes beyond the traditional writing style. She perceives her purpose in life as awakening interest and understanding for her art and fostering the breaching of the gap between cultures.

Art emerges from meditative contemplation: Calligraphy and painting from Sanae Sakamoto.