Leaves of Words: Satoshi Nemoto, Tsuneo Nakazawa, Shinya Yamamura
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Overview
Exhibition opens Friday, october 30, 2026
- Opening Reception at 35 N Moore Street, TriBeCa: October 30, 2026, 6–8 PM
- Private viewing by appointment only.
NEW YORK, NY – Ippodo Gallery is pleased to present Leaves of Words: Satoshi Nemoto, Tsuneo Nakazawa, Shinya Yamamura, at Ippodo Gallery in TriBeCa, New York from October 30 to December 5, 2026. The exhibition follows a single script across three materials and three hands: the brush of calligrapher Satoshi Nemoto, the forged iron of Tsuneo Nakazawa, and the mother-of-pearl inlay of lacquer master Shinya Yamamura.
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Press Release
NEW YORK, NY—Ippodo Gallery is pleased to present Leaves of Words, on view October 30 to December 5, 2026. Three masters delve into modern interpretations of Japanese script in three unique materials: calligraphy written by Satoshi Nemoto, forged iron sculpted by Tsuneo Nakazawa, and raden lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl by Shinya Yamamura.
"Japanese poetry takes the human heart as its seed and grows into myriad leaves of words." Preface to the Kokin Wakashū, the earliest kana anthology written by the author Ki no Tsurayuki c. 905.
Kana emerged in the ninth century, when Japanese writers began abbreviating Chinese characters into a phonetic script of their own. In the Heian court, it flourished as the language of poetry and love letters—supple, cursive, and written in a single continuous breath; as much drawing as writing. A thousand years later, kana remains the writing of ordinary Japanese life while retaining its artistic origins. The exhibition features Nemoto’s original works of calligraphy written in Japanese kana, the strokes of each character overlayed and flowing. Nakazawa sculpts kana—from works written by Japan’s historical figures—in iron with inochige ("life brush"): a calligraphy term referring to the continuity of the line. Each work is fluid and unbroken in metal. Yamamura meticulously integrates the script into his tea caddies and incense boxes using traditional mother-of-pearl inlay.
Satoshi Nemoto (b. 1984) works with traditional brushes and rare washi, preserving the traditions of the Heian period. The historical inheritance in his practice carries through his mark making: strokes unfold as metaphorical landscapes in which water cascades, branches sway, and wind hums with the same classical elegance Heian literature, now brought into the present. Nemoto’s twelve new "Flow" series works range in size compositionally on paper in hues of white, brown, and blue. The collection elaborates upon two waka poems of his own making: “Woven by threads of rain, the flower opens into color; from a heart so dyed, the leaves of words are spun,” and “In moonlight leaking through the trees — is it the presence of blossoms, or the breath of the branches?”
Tsuneo Nakazawa (b. 1973) drew from classic texts of waka poems to forge nine works in iron; the central themes focus on the moon and concept of yūgen—the elusive and profound meaning of life prized by the poets of the historical Heian and Kamakura eras. Among the texts-given-form are verses by the writers Saigyō, Fujiwara no Ietaka, Fujiwara no Yoshitsune, and Ōe no Chisato. Their waka poems were recorded in anthologies such as the Kokin Wakashū and Shin Kokin Wakashū, and the Shin Chokusen Wakashū. As sculptures, light casts the shadow of the kana calligraphy onto the wall behind. The closing words by Tsurayuki in the earliest kana anthology impart a timeless message: to grasp the heart of poetry is to look back at the past, and long for the present as one gazes at the moon in a wide sky.
Shinya Yamamura (b. 1960) contributes a group of lidded boxes set with the iridescent interiors of limpet shells, among them abalone and oyster, which are extracted and cut by hand, then prepared into the shapes of kana characters. The raden technique—the inlay of mother-of-pearl into urushi lacquer—is a quintessentially Japanese technique of ancient origins. Now the president of Kanazawa College of Art, Yamamura’s technically impressive approach modernizes the medium while referencing the aesthetics of classical literature.
The flowing nature of kana script evokes a visual language before any linguistic meaning. Each stroke inherently possesses rhythm, a breath in the spaces intentionally left between. When realized in raden lacquer and forged iron, the rhythm is given physical form. Set in lacquer by Yamamura, kana script catches the light in shifting color. Hammered into iron by Nakazawa, each mark becomes weighted and casts a shadow. Together the three artists trace one script from brush to iron to lacquer, and one idea from the ninth century to the present.
The exhibition is accompanied by an essay on Nemoto's calligraphy by Sadako Ohki, Ph.D., the Former Japan Foundation Associate Curator of Japanese Art, Department of Asian Art, Yale University Art Gallery.
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Director's Letter
Leaves of Words
October 2026, Shoko Aono
When the heart is deeply moved, we have always reached for words. The wish to tell, the wish to remember: this urgent longing became writing, and in time, writing became song.
Today we live surrounded by more words than ever before. Type streams endlessly across our screens, arriving in an instant and vanishing just as quickly. Because words have grown so weightless, I wish to look again at a script born more than a thousand years ago: kana. This is where Leaves of Words begins.
Kana emerged in the ninth century, when Chinese characters were boldly abbreviated and set free into flowing forms. One might call it Japan's alphabet. From man'yōgana, which borrowed the sounds of Chinese characters, came sōgana, the cursive kana, and then hiragana, once known as onnade, "the woman's hand." Refined by Japanese sensibility and aesthetic feeling, this script found its vessel in waka, a poem of only thirty-one syllables in lines of five, seven, five, seven, seven. Together with the elegance of the imperial court, it gave rise to a culture of words without equal.
In the early tenth century, Ki no Tsurayuki wrote in the kana preface to the “Kokin Wakashū (New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern)”:
The poetry of Japan takes the human heart as its seed,
and grows into a myriad leaves of words.
(...)
Without exerting any force, it moves heaven and earth;
it stirs tenderness even in unseen spirits;
it softens the bond between man and woman,
and soothes the heart of the fiercest warrior.
This is poetry.Words are leaves sprung from a single seed, the heart. And those leaves, without any force at all, can move heaven and earth.
What, then, are these “leaves” we call words?
A written character carries meaning, yet it also has a body of its own: the swell and ebb of the brushstroke (renmen), the unbroken line that binds one character to the next, the wetness and dryness of the ink, and the space left unwritten. Before the meaning of a poem reaches us, something else appears: the writer's breath, their feeling, their grace. Perhaps kana moves us because words, reaching beyond meaning, convey who the person is themself.
Even in a digital age, at the root of what it means to be human—the only creature that speaks in words—lives an invisible heart that longs to tell and to remember. This exhibition seeks to reveal that unseen world in visible form.
Calligrapher Satoshi Nemoto, iron artist Tsuneo Nakazawa, and lacquer artist Shinya Yamamura turn to kana in three entirely different material languages: ink, iron, and lacquer. Illuminated from three angles, words—their inherent sensations, soul, and cultural depth—come together into a single image.
Satoshi Nemoto composed two poems of his own and unfolded them into works of many forms. "The heart is not a jewel," he says, "but something like a cord." He writes while circling the table on which his paper lies. His lines do not simply descend from top to bottom. In the mind at the moment before a poem is born, words begin to unravel. They tangle, knot, and return again and again in recollection, until at last they rise into a single poem and take shape. On Echizen washi, layer upon layer of ink in shifting tones seems to breathe. On ryōshi, decorated papers made by techniques handed down since the Heian period, characters layered in gofun, white pigment made of powdered shell, shimmer like emotions that arise and fade away.
Tsuneo Nakazawa has given form in forged iron to classical waka from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, selected and written out by Nemoto. Above all, he has turned to poems of the moon and of yūgen, the profound beauty of what lies just beyond sight. At the center of the brush tip lies a single hair, the inochige, or "life hair," which gives birth to the unbroken line. Hard, heavy iron is the very opposite of the brush’s suppleness. By striking and forging the metal again and again, Nakazawa achieves the flowing continuity unique to kana. Lines so soft that one would never imagine them born of iron catch the light and cast beautiful shadows, revealing kana to us in three dimensions.
Shinya Yamamura renders kana set into lacquer boxes through raden, the traditional art of mother-of-pearl inlay. The iridescence hidden within the shell shifts with every angle, quietly heightening the sculptural beauty of kana and its beauty as pattern.
For many who visit New York, kana may be a script they cannot read. Yet, I believe this is not a wall but a doorway. Even undeciphered, it moves the heart. Each time I stand before kana, I am struck anew by this mystery. What reaches us before meaning may be the oldest and deepest power of words.
This exhibition presents each artist at the current height of their practice. It is also a rare occasion on which three distinct realms, ink, iron, and lacquer, meet under a single theme. In this city where languages and cultures converge, it is deeply meaningful for Japanese kana to be seen for its true nature. It is my heartfelt hope that this exhibition will stand as a landmark for all three artists, and be a place of new encounter with words for every visitor.
I believe that a single leaf will find its way to someone's heart.
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Contributing Essay
Nemoto's Kana Choreography
— Sadako Ohki, September 2026
Former Japan Foundation Associate Curator of Japanese ArtYale UniversityLEAVES OF WORDS at Ippodo Gallery New York presents the contemporary Japanese kana calligraphy of Dr. Satoshi Nemoto. Nemoto’s highly refined practice begins with the careful selection of his materials - from Ganpi washi paper and treated paper with botanical dyeing (Kusaki-zome) to selected brushes crafted using techniques revived from the courtly Heian period (794-1185). The exhibition focuses on the dynamic, interwoven calligraphic style of Nemoto’s oeuvre, which incorporates his own poetry and short literary phrases drawn from his deep scholarship in Chinese and Japanese language, classical literature, and philosophy.
Three works selected here give us a glimpse of Nemoto’s uniqueness in the traditional field of Japanese kana calligraphy. Kana, roughly equivalent to the English alphabet, has origins in the 5th century, when Japan was faced with the need to make their own written language, abbreviating and adapting Chinese characters, kanji. Today, the Japanese language is a mixture of kanji and kana. In the field of calligraphic art, complicated use of multiple kana representations and styles heighten the aesthetic appreciation of kana calligraphy.
All selected three calligraphic works are based on a single waka poem of 31 syllables composed by the calligrapher Nemoto himself. The poem says:
“The color of the flowers blooming,
Woven in threads of rain
Words that spin and gather
a heart dyed in their hue.”
雨糸に 織られて咲いた 花の色 染まる心を 紡ぐ言の葉
amaito ni/ orare te saita/ hana no iro/ somaru kokoro wo/ tsumugu koto no ha
The poem suggests the blossoming of love, comparing it to a heart “woven in threads of rain” and dyed in the hues of blooming flowers.
The selected three works correspond to the Gallery Program List Flow "Wisteria Trellis" (Fujidana), "「 藤棚」”; Flow "Budding" (Hōga), "「 萌芽」",; and Flow "Willow Waves" (Ryūrō), "「柳浪」".
Nemoto brushed Flow "Wisteria Trellis" (Fujidana), "「 藤棚」” on Echizen washi paper made in Fukui prefecture. He repeated the poetic lines of his waka in his mind while he made the general design of the piece. The design of the descending left half is brushed in an orderly manner while the right side expresses irregularity in the length of the columns and the spatial arrangements of the characters. Nemoto explained that he first brushed the kana in light ink. He then viewed the piece from different angles, applying varieties of kana forms in a darker ink, creating irregular formations that adds power to the work. The finished work looks like a flock of birds about to
take flight.
Flow "Budding" (Hōga), "「 萌芽」", witnesses the artist’s first experiment in applying a white pigment called gofun in place of black ink–traditionally made of ground sea shells mixed with glue–on a dyed sheet of paper. Applying gofun makes the paper less absorbent than ordinary washi. Thus, the gofun does not sink as deeply into the paper, leaving behind pools of white and dense marks. The artist revealed that he had a strong urge to draw from the lower to the upper sections of the page; however, it was impossible because brush lines are always painted from top to bottom. The tension beckons us into a wondrous adventure in a dark forest.
The calligraphic lines of Flow "Willow Waves" (Ryūrō), "「柳浪」" recall the long and sinewy branches of a willow tree blowing in the wind. Nemoto has included liquid spatters of white gofun on his work, enhancing the image of a strong wind blowing against the page. The piece evokes the imagery captured in Nemoto’s waka, suggesting the woven threads of love have begun swaying and taking flight after having gone through heavy entanglements in the forest.
The contemporary calligrapher Nemoto has opened up a new possibility in the modern art of kana. Rather than drawing a clearly singled out form of kana, he orchestrates them to become a linear symphony. He himself is the composer, the musician, and the conductor, using the fluent and abbreviated forms of kana in his artistic endeavour to touch our hearts.
How fortunate to have kana calligraphy that can represent a vital identity of unique Japanese written form! Creation of kana went through a messy process of conjuring through chaotic learning, adaptation, and abbreviation. We should not forget that women were at the forefront of simplifying the kana forms in early history. And today the calligrapher Mr. Nemoto uplifted the kana to be a pattern of melodical traces.
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