Kana - Japanese Syllabaries - Paper-cut Art
Japanese alphabets are seen a lot in graphic design industries nowadays and I noticed that Japanese writing as an art is celebrated more often by non-Japanese creators than by the Japanese natives.
As a native, I wanted to take an initiative to showcase the aesthetic of the 2 sets of alphabets. With an unconventional twist, I hope both Japanese natives and non-Japanese speakers can enjoy.
The Japanese language has three major writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji.
Modern hiragana and katakana only have 46 letters each while Kanji which originates from the Chinese language is believed to have more than 50,000 characters. These three different writing systems are often used together in the same sentence.
I made paper-cut arts with 2 kana sets (syllabaries): Hiragana and Katakana.
Although they look the same from afar, the ways they are layered are the opposite.
For the Hiragana piece, the lettering is cut out of a sheet of black paper and is glued to the white background paper.
For the Katakana piece, the lettering is perforated off of a sheet of white paper, and glued to the black background paper.
ご鑑賞、ありがとうございマシタ。
Thank you for watching!
