Inking My Own Mark, Christine Flint Sato

On Being a Western Contemporary Ink Painter in Japan

I am a British ink* painter based in Japan and have been working in ink for many years. I studied calligraphy (Shodo), both ancient Chinese scripts and Abstract Calligraphy (Bokusho), for about 9 years, but I realized that however much I loved the Chinese characters themselves, calligraphy was always going to remain ‘other.’ I was not able to use it to express myself fully as it was not my language. My second stint with ink was about 8 years later when I studied ink painting with a Chinese ink painter at an art college in Kyoto for 4 years. Both my calligraphy and ink painting teachers took my desire to learn seriously,  giving support and posing challenges in equal measure. I shall always be very grateful to them.

Since then, for the past 20 years, I have been working independently. Over the years I have worked in a variety of styles, but fundamental to my practise has been exploration. I make a mark, paint a line, leave a space, the ink responds or demands a response. It seems increasingly that I am being led, rather than doing the leading. The ink world has much to offer, I have much to discover.

As a Westerner producing ink artwork in Japan, I have often been told by Japanese and Chinese how impossible it is for Westerners to understand the art form, explaining it is “very profound,” implying only those of Asian cultural heritage can truly comprehend it. Japanese artists have questioned my knowledge or understanding of the medium itself. A Chinese painter, when he heard, I was married to a Japanese man, commented, ‘Oh so that’s why you understand how to do ink painting!’

These kinds of comments reveal that for Japanese and Chinese, artists and public alike, Asian ethnicity and the ability to practise ink art are inexorably linked. It is assumed that only if you are of Asian descent that you can truly understand and produce ink art. Incidentally, I have never heard Japanese or Chinese maintain the converse, namely, that only if you’re a Westerner can you understand oil painting, and that as Asians they are unable truly to understand how to use the oil medium.

It is understandable that Japanese and Chinese ink painters feel cautious about Westerners practicing their art forms. Ink painting and calligraphy have over a 2,000-year history with a fully developed aesthetic and body of art theory. It takes many years for artists to master the techniques, become fully versant in their genre and develop their own style.  It is relatively recently that western academics in East Asian studies and museum curators of East Asian departments have begun fully to chart their depth and subtleties, and to provide commentaries for a more general public. Ink art is one of the biggest threats the Western art canon, accepted as the international norm for generations, is facing.

A more fundamental challenge, however, is one which targets the idea of the national art canon itself, including those of China and Japan. It comes from international developments in contemporary art practise.  Artists now produce, exhibit and sell artwork worldwide. They travel and experience other cultures first hand; they meet artists and see artwork from other cultures in their homelands, and they connect with other artists worldwide through the internet. The resultant artwork draws on a variety of different sources and cultures. Ink painting, as it has been traditionally taught and practised, is not exempt from this challenge. Recent artwork by East Asian artists living inside or outside their homelands, and by Westerners experimenting with ink and studying Asian arts and culture has demonstrated this.  The notion of the national art canon with its implied cultural essentialism is slowly being overtaken by a plurality of art forms produced by a multi-cultural population of artists.

In my case, reactions to my artwork have been varied. It is often said to be “very Japanese.” This is inevitable as my art training has all been in Japan and I use scrolls as much as frames. An American art professor commented that some aspects of my style were similar to the Japanese Rinpa painting style, but also that I was working beyond boundaries, borrowing techniques and finding inspiration from a variety of sources. A French critic on seeing one of my works acknowledged links to Japanese art but added it couldn’t have been done by a Japanese. For many Japanese my work does not match their presuppositions about the kind of work Westerners do, nor can they find something in the work which is obviously British. For them, nationality, content and style should ‘match up’ in ways which are generally understood to be typical.

For myself, it’s always cheering to hear comments from those who take time to look at the artwork itself and give personal responses to it, not based on whether it is Japanese or Asian or whether I am Western or not.

 'Hanging Rocks'  143 X 50 cm X 2, 143 X 38 cm

From the beginning of my studies in calligraphy, I was captivated by the relation of the black line to white paper, the energy of line, the interaction of forms and of the ‘white space.’  With ink painting the range of expression made possible by the sensitive brush and gradations of ink, sometimes with a limited palette of colour, becomes more subtle, and for me quasi-metaphysical. It is immediately a world of presence and absence, stillness and movement, here and now and of vast space and timelessness.  Forms began to disintegrate revealing a world of particles whizzing in space, a natural outcome of my mark making. Recently I’ve been exploring the limitless dark of the ink, and the solidity of colour. For me, ink art reveals as much about philosophy as it does aesthetics. 

'Passing through Air'  140 X 50 cm X 4   

 'Indigo Sea, Sumi Sky 1'  32 X 36 cm     

There is a small but it seems growing population of Western artists who are learning the ink arts. For some, the ink medium itself is the main attraction, the seduction of the inks on the Asian papers; for others it is the philosophical base, in particular Taoism or Zen Buddhism. For yet others it is the possibility of combining ink with a western art medium such as acrylics, or with different forms of printing.

It is perhaps germane to compare these artists with those Westerners of the 1960s and 70s who headed East to study the religions and philosophies of Asia. Buddhism and other Eastern religions are now practised by significant numbers of people in many centers throughout the West.  They are no longer just religions of the East. For Westerners the question has been: “How far is what we’re learning and doing cultural and how far is it a necessary part of the practise of Buddhism?”  They have slowly been finding ways of practicing Buddhism which are appropriate to their cultures, and which feel natural to them. This does not make them any less Buddhist, in many ways their insights bring fresh ways of looking at the tradition.

A similar question can be asked of the ink arts.  How far is what we learn and practise cultural and how far is it a necessary part of the practise of the ink arts of calligraphy and ink painting?  In workshops I hold with both Westerners and Japanese I introduce core elements of the art form. The Westerners have no experience of ink arts.  The Japanese have usually had a limited experience of using brush and ink, often just a short  handwriting class at elementary school. They are aware of the art form and want to try it out in a more contemporary way.

In the workshops I focus on the essential features of the medium, such as line work, gradation, wet and dry brush work.  I use more culturally neutral subject matter as well as traditional Asian motifs, such as bamboo and orchid.  Japanese cultural design elements, for example asymmetry, and also Western design features are introduced for participants to use with their own subject matter.  A few years ago, I published ‘Sumi Workbook’ in English in which these exercises are introduced. As more Westerners and young Asian artists are exposed to ink and its potential, so more artwork will challenge many of the traditional assumptions about ink art and its aesthetic.

Workshop Exploring Organic and Inorganic Shapes

In this changing climate a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between ethnicity and ink artwork is needed. Ink painters still tend to be Asian or of Asian descent, but there are substantial differences between them. Currently ink art by Chinese and other East Asian artists who left their homelands and are now living abroad is widely acclaimed.  These artists were taught calligraphy and ink painting from childhood and they have mastery of the arts, for them ink art is still very much a part of their lives. It is a more complex question when considering ink art by Asians born and raised outside Asia, and young Asians, such as the Japanese in my workshops, who did not practise calligraphy or ink painting from childhood. Their artwork reflects their experiences and ethnicity in the same way it does for any artist and does not necessarily entail an intrinsic understanding of ink arts.

We live in a world of increasingly mixed ethnic populations. Knowing the ethnicity and biography of an artist can add to our understanding of any artwork, but it is the artwork itself which must stand up to aesthetic appraisal.  The roots of ink art are deep; they have nourished new forms over the centuries. In our present-day inter-connected world, they will continue to nourish the flowering of new ink art, wherever it may appear and whoever the painter may be. 

My Studio

Christine Flint Sato

2021/2025

*ink refers to Japanese sumi or sumi ink　

Main image above: 'Sky Rocks 2' 143 X 50 cm, 143 X 36 cm X 2

Website:  https://cflintsato.com

Email Address: cflintsato3@gmail.com

Further workshop images are on the Blog on my website in the ‘Workshops’ category:

https://sumiwork.wordpress.com/category/workshops/

Email me if you are interested in purchasing a copy of ‘Sumi Workbook.’