KANO KAMEGAWA

Born in Kumamoto, Japan in 1996 and currently based in Hiroshima, Kano Kamegawa received her doctorate in Fine Arts from Hiroshima City University’s Graduate School of Art in 2025. Using a combination of traditional nihonga materials, such as mineral pigments, silver leaf, and washi paper, as well as contemporary tools like felt-tip pens, Kamegawa investigates the formal and conceptual structures of writing systems. Her layered compositions resemble enigmatic palimpsests, where handwritten letters emerge and dissolve within carefully constructed fields of negative space. The artist primarily employs hiragana: a curvilinear, phonetic script originally developed in Japan as a simplified alternative to Chinese characters, shaped by the flowing movements of the human hand. Drawing from both calligraphic and painterly traditions, Kamegawa explores the fluid relationship between words and meaning, language and image, in which the written mark weaves across communication and visual expression.