Shikishi board #1 / 9.5″ x 10.5″ / $150 (framed) / Karen Kurka Jensen

“Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves; singing songs, drinking wine, diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; … refusing to be disheartened… this is what we call the floating world…”
Description of the images created by Japanese (ukiyo-e) wood-cut artists

Hokusai Katsushika’s Kanagawa Great Wave

For me, the miraculous abstraction of Karen Kurka Jensen’s “shikishi boards” is a 21st century parallel to the decorative beauty of the wood-cuts of the Japanese ukiyo-e artists. Washes of metallic pigments collapse the illusion of deep space, and, like Hokusai Katsushika’s iconic, “Kanagawa Great Wave”, create a dramatic interplay of convoluted form, line and color. Their visual impact is cosmic and oceanic in nature. This has been the foundation for my on-going affection for these small sumi-e paintings.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night

Interestingly, the opening of trade with Japan achieved by Matthew Perry’s 1854 “Treaty of Peace and Amity”, allowed a ready stream of Japanese wood-cuts to reach global markets, and the influence on Western art was almost immediate. Compare, for instance, Hokusai’s “Great Wave…” with Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. Such pivotal intersections of history and visual art lend lively understanding to the evolution of imagery and style. The “floating worlds” of the ukiyo-e artists spawned a revolution in Western art- illusionism would never be the same! Tenets of linear perspective as posited in Renaissance Italy were challenged by the choice of creating an abstracted space as compelling as that of the artists of “floating worlds”.

Shikishi board #2 / 9.5″ x 10.5″ / $150 (framed) / Karen Kurka Jensen

A fresh batch of Jensen’s shikishi boards awaits you, and in the spirit of the aesthetic of the ukiyo-e artists I’ve selected this offering from the poetry of Li-young Lee.