is a participant of the 'third generation' of the

Gutai Art Association The was a Japanese avant-garde artist group founded in the Hanshin region by young artists under the leadership of the painter Jirō Yoshihara in Ashiya, Japan, in 1954. It operated until shortly after Yoshihara's death in 1972. The group, toda ...

from the mid 1960s onward. Her paintings are often characterized by an inorganic composition, seemingly devoid of emotional expression. Kanno is also a member of an experimental, avant-garde group of poets, in which she composed highly visual poems using symbols and ''

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

'' syllables. Her work additionally suggests her admiration of music, physics and mathematics, to which she became devoted towards in her later years.

Biography

Seiko Kanno was born in Sendai, Japan in 1933. She began painting and composing poems in high school. Kanno graduated from the Faculty of Human Development and Culture at

Fukushima University , abbreviated to , is a national university in Japan. The main campus is located in Kanayagawa, Fukushima, Fukushima, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture. History Fukushima University was established in 1949 by integrating three national co ...

where she often entered her abstract paintings into publicly sponsored exhibitions. Kanno began working with collage upon moving to Kobe, using newspaper and cardboard. Starting in 1964, she began showing her work to Gutai Art exhibitions, becoming an official member in 1968. She returned to painting in the late 60's. In 1965, Kanno moved to Tokyo along with her husband who had been transferred there for work. In Tokyo, she joined an art study group, led by poet

Seiichi Niikuni was a Japanese poet and painting, painter. He was one of the foremost pioneers of the international avant-garde concrete poetry movement, creating works of calligraphic, visual and aural poetry. He is recognized as one of the most important poet ...

, where she composed semiotic poems and began to introduce geometrical patterns in her paintings, calling these works (code poetry). In later years, Kanno audited university classes in physics and mathematics at

Kyoto University , or , is a National university, national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen gra ...

Kwansei Gakuin University , colloquially known as , is a private, non-denominational Christian coeducational university in Japan. The university offers Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees to around 25,000 students in almost 40 different disciplines across 11 underg ...

, and elsewhere. Much of her later works specifically draw inspiration from these subjects.

Selected exhibitions

Solo

Group

Writings

Seiko Kanno published an anthology titled Mr. SU in 1971, through the

National Museum of Art, Osaka is a subterranean Japanese art museum located on the island of Nakanoshima, located between the Dōjima River and the Tosabori River, about 10 minutes west of Higobashi Station in central Osaka. The official Japanese title of the museum trans ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kanno, Seiko 1933 births 1988 deaths Fukushima University alumni Artists from Miyagi Prefecture Writers from Miyagi Prefecture People from Sendai