Blessing 1983

Toko Shinoda created "Blessing" with ink on paper. The brushstrokes dance across the surface, with the ink shifting from light grays to solid blacks. Just imagine the artist, carefully loading her brush, feeling the balance in her hand, as she makes each mark on the page. Look at the gray cross and the black dagger shape cutting across it, there's a real push and pull. That dash of red slicing into the black, wow, it's like a sudden revelation! Shinoda was part of a generation of artists who were modernizing calligraphy, and you see that here, but it is more expression than text. There is a relationship between the way she works with ink and, say, Franz Kline's big black strokes—a sense of immediacy, but with a completely different cultural underpinning. Each gesture feels so intentional, like she's not just painting, but also blessing the paper, and us, with her concentrated attention.