What is a Line | Nails Salon Gallery
The artist Shunkin Takahashi started calligraphy at age six and never stopped
Head over to Park Slope’s Nails Salon Gallery this week to check out the fantastic exhibit, What is a Line, by Shunkin Takahashi.
A calligraphy master, painter, and poet, Takahashi creates minimal abstract canvases in ink as well as sinuous brush paintings of Black Beauty roses (a favorite of the artist’s), cityscapes, pine needles, and more. She is inspired by nature—“flowers, mountains, the moon, and water”—she said Wednesday evening during a calligraphy demonstration at the gallery.
Born Takako Kanesaka in 1943 in Tokyo, Japan, the artist began taking lessons in calligraphy at age six and “never stopped,” she says. She was later given the name Shunkin by her calligraphy master, according to the book accompanying the exhibit.
Takahashi’s father was a businessman who sold rice straw roof thatching, “an industry gone,” also noted in the book. Her mother was a former telegram operator, an accountant, and a homemaker. The second of four children, and the only daughter, her mother insisted Takahashi get an education to prepare her for the changing post-war world.
She studied oil painting, and continued studying calligraphy, at Tokyo University of the Arts where she met her husband, a printmaking student.
After graduating, the two married and moved to the United States in 1964, when Takahashi was 21. The couple have one son, an illustrator in Seattle, and one daughter, a researcher and analyst in Oakland.
Takahashi worked as a calligrapher for advertising agencies and print publications and continues to teach calligraphy at The Nippon Club in Manhattan. One of her calligraphy scrolls appeared in an episode of the television series Mozart in the Jungle in 2018.
Takahashi and her family moved to 5th Avenue in Park Slope back in 1981. In May of last year, Nails Salon Gallery opened up next door to their home. She is by far the most hyperlocal artist to be featured at the gallery that focuses on local talent.
Her calligraphy demonstration was entrancing. Viewers were mesmerized watching the artist methodically sweep her brush across white rice paper, creating elegant black strokes. “Calligraphy is line art,” she explained, adding that lines can represent many things, including life, family, and home.
Nails Salon Gallery will host another calligraphy demo with Takahashi on Saturday, February 1 from 5-7pm, during the closing reception for the exhibit. Don’t miss your chance to see this stunning show and witness the artist at work!
Nails Salon Gallery
563A 5th Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Wish I could attend the closing reception. Would love to check out Takahashi's work and the Nails Salon Gallery. Thanks for introducing me to a new artist and a new venue.