Press Articles

THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN 

THE DAILY YOMURI , JAPAN  26 FEB 1993. (Translation)

NOTE: This is not the picture that accompanied 
the article, but the story is true!,17 million (plus 
or minus a few) readers discovered Inkslinger Art 
through it's first public appearance a loo! The 
reporter/patron of Yoshimura "saw the story" 
through some rather foggy beer goggles I suspect.

It looks like calligraphy, yet they are not kanji characters. When you look at it closely, you realize it is Roman alphabet. The sizes and the thickness of the strokes vary, and the arrangement is bold. This work, done in black ink on washi paper is produced by Merissa. ”Japanese calligraphy is interesting in that one doesn’t have to be able to read what is written in order to feel the emotion of the artists,” says Merissa. 

Born in Australia, she graduated from Sydney University with a degree in Architecture. After spending two years in London working with various designers, she came to Japan 18 months ago where she now works at Pandachic, a design company in Shibuya. Since the company introduced her to ink scrolls last summer, Merissa started to work on her calligraphy through books. ”There are various styles to it and you can sense the passions of the different writers,” and so she started to design her own style of barely legible calligraphy. 

Two pieces of her early work are displayed in the washroom of ’Yoshimura’ soba restaurant at Kichijoji in Musashinoshi-city. One features the name of the restaurant and reads; ”Yoshimura Soul Food,” and the other is a Latin proverb, ”Past Longa, Vita Brevis” (Pasta is long, Life is short). She met the restaurant manager, Mr Kaneko last year when he asked Pandachic to do the refurbishment of Yoshimura. He is thrilled with Merissa’s work. 

In May she is going to show her other calligraphy works, as well as a sofa made of tatami and some washi lamps. These are her interpretations of Japanese tradition. She is optimistic about her work and says, ”One day I would like to do Interiors of shops and  restaurants”.

Japan,  May 1993 (Translation)

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Designer (Australia) / Merissa Walker

MERISSA’S WAY OF SHODOU

At a glance, the words look like snakes dancing on paper. They are words but the characters are neither kanji or kana. You reflect for a moment and take a second glance. The letters written on the paper are the roman alphabet. The lines, how they are lined up, the touches to these letters are simply elegant. Rather than calling them unique, it is more appropriate to call them full of artistic sense. ”What do you think of them compared to Japanese calligraphy? Just for reference, this one says ’Sex & Drugs 8 Rock ’n’ Roll’,” smiles Merissa as she explains this to us. She is the creator of this work. She graduated from Sydney University with a degree in Architecture, then went to work as a designer in the U.K. She arrived in Japan about two years ago, and from May last year has been working at the Japanese design company ’Pandachic’ in Shibuya. Her attraction to ink brush calligraphy came about when she was exposed to traditional Japanese artworks as part of her interior decorating work at that company. She then studied and read books on shodou. After work she practiced brushstrokes and started on her own pieces. ”At first encounter I was fascinated by it. At the same time I thought that it would be impossible to master such a technique without reading Japanese. I realized I could never be one of those distinguished teachers who put over 50 years into brushing up their skills; so I took the essence of shodou and blended my own design interpretations into it. That was the start of my alphabet shodou.” Besides writing maxims and famous sayings on paper, she also writes down her personal feelings. ”There is a sense of freshness in my daily life in Tokyo. I feel the differences here very strongly and they provide inspiration for pieces of shodou writing.” Her works are highly valued by her colleagues and they are already being used as interior decoration for some of their more adventurous clients. ”As a designer I’m just testing my creativity. I digest all the different ideas that come my way and try to use them in new ways .... I consider shodou but one form of expression.” There was much vitality seen behind those beautiful eyes of the creator.

 The Japan Times Newspaper, 1993.11.21

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Slinging words about

At first glance the works appear to be fanciful, exotic Japanesque decor. Or an avant-garde experiment by some new artist challenging Japan’s hidebound calligraphic tradition. However, these are India ink works by Merissa ”Inkslinger” Walker, a 25-year-old designer native of Australia, resident of Tokyo for two years. In a current exhibition, the works are displayed on the walls of the restaurant Kreisel, in the German Cultural Centre in Tokyo’s Akasaka. 

Some of her scripts seem like kanji (Chinese characters) in the grass hand; others remind one of Sanskrit letters, and some just look like capricious sketches by ultra-modern designers. A closer look shows this is the Roman alphabet, however – English words drawn with a brush in a fancy, barely legible style. One piece shows the silhouette of Sydney’s Opera House, the well-known shell-shaped roofs drawn with miniature letters. Some works are on washi (Japanese paper) in the shape of a T-shirt, adorned by calligraphic samples of Australian slang: ”Kangaroos in the top paddock” (to be crazy), ”Dag” (an untidy dresser) and ”Let’s go chase a cow” (a unique expression, better go see this one for yourself). 

Walker encountered Japanese calligraphy while working at an interior design company handling Japanese scrolls, ”First I got interested in calligraphy because I couldn’t read it,” Walker said. ”Then I was fascinated to know that even Japanese can’t read it easily, so I was seeing Japanese calligraphy the same way as Japanese did.” Walker started to teach herself using Japanese calligraphy books. However, ”to make it more artistic and get more results quickly,” she invented her own Roman alphabet calligraphy, ”In the flow of India ink, I can express my natural feelings,” Walker explained, She was encouraged when a client of the company ordered two of her calligraphic works for his refurbished soba (Japanese noodle) house in Tokyo.

Walker graduated from Sydney University with a degree in Architecture, and went to London where she worked as a TV art director for nearly two years before coming to Japan in the autumn of 199l. ln her next exhibition, to open Tuesday at Tokyo’s Wisma ll Gallery, she will show new works, including calligraphy on screens, scrolls and some kakejiku (hanging screens) with her haiku on them. 

Walker’s Aussie haiku replace the conventional seasonal word – a must in the Japanese short poem – with a ”seasonal sports word” de- scribing typical Australian sports scenes, One of her haiku reads: 'ln a stagnant queue, The Hill erupts! Just missed the catch of the match'. One kakejiku she makes more tangible. In it the Chinese character for ”light” is cut out from the screen and illuminated from behind. ”Though I’m not a very good poet, I hope people feel my emotions in my works, since I think calligraphy is what you can enjoy even without knowing what is written in it,” said Walker, adding that she is now working on kanji. She hopes to hold, in the near future, an exhibition of calligraphy using Japanese characters only. (S.NAGOYA)

The Merissa Walker calligraphy exhibition, an official event of the Celebrate Australia Fair, is being held till Nov.26 at the German Cultural Centre (Goethe Institut) 7-5-58 Akasaka. Minato-ku Tokyo. Another exhibition starts Nov.23 at Wisma II Gallery, located at 3-7-4 Jingumae. Shibuya-ku. Tokyo.

Marco Polo Magazine, December 1993. 

MERISSA WALKER

INKSLINGER BEAUTY: BRUSHSTROKES OF ALPHABET FROM AN AVANT-GARDE AUSTRALIAN SHODOU ARTIST

Can you read the writing hanging against the wall? It looks like Chinese characters at a glance but is actually alphabet. To the right reads ’Home sweet home’, and on the left side there is a passage taken from a famous Australian poem, which is written vertically from right to left. The artist who has retouched upon the Japanese tradition of shodou (calligraphy) is Merissa Walker. “I would go to calligraphy exhibitions with Japanese friends, and when I asked them to read the text to me, hardly anyone was able to read the characters. That’s when I decided to adopt the calligraphy style but write it in English. All you need is ink, brush and washi to get started. I’m also attracted to the beautiful textures of washi.” 
She has been working in Tokyo since 1991, when she came to visit her father who is posted in Japan. Between the ages of 8 -12 she came to Japan a few times. Perhaps because of this background she was not hit by the grandiose Japanese illusion apt to be embraced by many foreign artists. 
”It’s not that I like all aspects of Japanese culture. Sado (tea ceremony) is so complete that there isn’t room for anything new, which makes it less interesting. In that respect both shodou and butou (dance) have a blend of tradition and avant gardness which makes them universal.” Young Japanese people in the 90’s can share her artistic sense. This is demonstrated by the psychedelic murals she has done for a bar in Nishiazabu called The Drugstore.  

SHODOU WORLD Translation 

(Stuffy establishment Bible of Japan's Calligraphy Artisans) 

January 1994

Editor’s Choice of the month section

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MERISSA ‘INKSLINGER’ WALKER

Lately we are seeing many artists who write various alphabets using ink brush. I don’t know whether that is considered modernistic or not, but before we even get to that point I must say that most of these works are nothing but boring. The artists simply let the brushstrokes lead them to any direction they feel like. Works by professional letterers are considered better compared to such works. Maybe it’s our fault; perhaps we just don’t understand that alphabets have a long history behind them.

An Australian designer, Merissa ’Inkslinger’ Walker writes old Australian poems in Queen’s English which is her native tongue. She does all this in ink brush and vertically as well. This is very interesting. These words that dance both vertically and horizontally have rhythm to them, and like most Western poetry which places more emphasis on sound than how the words look, you can almost hear the rhythm through your eyes. The fun is added by her finishing touches and displays. Her scrolls are backed with coloured urethane material, her folding screens are made out of fly screen door panels, and her washi coat has words inscribed on it. It’s easy to call these works products of bi-cultural differences, but I’m sure that these pieces mean a lot more behind the veiled culture of alphabet.

JAPAN PICTORIAL

INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY MAGAZINE
Vol 17, No.2, 1994

                                                                                         Many of Merissa Walker’s works convey two 
different things: her ink markings spell out an 
idea in English, while their form hints at the 
underlying concept. 

Merissa Walker aims to turn tradition inside out with a new calligraphy that takes the ancient Japanese art of Shodou, ”shakes it up, twists it around,” and winds up with something a lot deeper than ink on paper. 

An Australian living in Japan since 1991, Walker has made her mark by creating ”things that didn’t exist before” with what she finds at the cultural crossroads. What do you get when you take Aussie slang and dip it in Shodou ink? A chance to ”look beyond the brush strokes” at your own tradition, says ”Inkslinger” Walker. 

Her reinvention in Roman letters of Japan’s time- honoured calligraphy merits the nickname. More than just making a superficial splash, though, she hopes to give Shodou a new chance to look more deeply at its own character. ”It takes someone from somewhere else to show you what you didn’t see before,” she reflects. ”That’s what I get out of being in Japan.”

ARTS 

PHOTO: A section of Merissa Walker’s scroll, And Ye Shall Dispossess. Photograph by SAHLAN HAYES 

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Radical inkslinging
and the republic

What does it mean? 
A republican art exhibition opens tomorrow and Jeremy Eccles looks at the work of an intriguing young calligrapher.

  I’M a republican – I believe it’s inevitable. But the arts community has done nothing to say Let’s look at this thing’. So I thought, why not ask what the republic means to artists young and old – especially the young? It’s going to be their republic.”

Michael Nagy will have his answer tomorrow. The Liberal republican Arts Minister, Peter Collins, will then open Recognising the Republic at Nagy’s eponymous gallery in Kings Cross And revealed will be the thoughts of such familiar names as Garry Shead and Colin Lanceley, Arthur Wicks and Susanne de Berenger – along with 25 others.

A preview noted many non-Anglo names, a handful of distorted Union Jacks, enough Aboriginal colours to get up Arthur Tunstall’s nose, and some surprising symbols abused – a kookaburra, a sheep or two and a moth-eaten lion.

Sculptors seem to have seen in the republic a shelter from the storm. One Asian scroll of calligraphy intrigued with its border of gilded photocopies from a British passport – revealing the artist to be one Merissa Walker. A hint in accompanying material that the calligraphic text was taken from “somewhere in the Bible/also The Bulletin in 1947”, turned the eyes back to the vertical scrawl. “And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell therein; for I have given you the land to possess it” revealed God (in Numbers), reassuring Moses (and colonialists everywhere) that Terra Nullius was up for grabs in Israel (or Australia). Aggressive stuff. 

But then, if you’re 26, Sydney-born but living in Tokyo, and never before exhibited in your home town, a little aggression doesn’t go amiss. Merissa Inkslinger Walker in fact brings to mind the old adage about bulls in china shops. Her first showing in Tokyo made the main television news right across Japan. Walker is realistic, though, in describing herself as “an above- average foreign woman doing something vaguely interesting. If I was Japanese, I’d either be stoned or ignored”. What excited the Japanese was that this gaijin was wittily challenging their very traditional world of calligraphy. “It wasn’t really a major art event – but you could say it was a radical shodou event”.

Shodou literally means the art of writing, hence calligraphy in Japan. It’s supposed to take many expensive lessons to master and is something Japan’s grannies do to while away their declining years. Not Merissa Walker. “I bought a book and discovered that you ought to do a thousand Itchi strokes to get it perfect before moving on. I did three – and jumped to Chapter 29 where it started to talk about artistic expression, all the feeling stuff that had got me interested in the first place.  I mean, when I discovered that most Japanese couldn’t read the masters of calligraphy, and good feelings were more important, I asked the question no-one seems to have done before: 'Why not write in English?'” Well, they may have asked the question, but not come up with the answer that it’s only a match for Asian calligraphy if you write downwards – not across the paper. 

Walker’s first piece read: “W hat does it mean?” – very Zen. It won her commissions from a restaurant, which a journalist saw on the way to the loo! A newspaper article, then a TV piece followed ”Suddenly I had to take myself seriously! You have to have a pen-name as a calligrapher – normally given to you by your sensei (master) when you reach a certain standard. I’m really not your Golden Heavenly Flower type – so I didn’t wait. Inkslinger is such a great word, which I found in an American dictionary. It’s from the New York gutter press, a sense of being rough and ready, sacrilegious even. And I liked the sound”. 

But what was the self-named shodou artist going to write? Aussie poetry and vernacular phrases, of course. Mind you, all those horseback ballads didn’t really have the feeling of Japanese verse. So Inkslinger gave her choices a bit of shape – Eva Johnson’s Uluru, for instance:, written in the shape of the Rock! Or Bangs Like a Dunny Door forming the walls of the old backyard facility. Or her piece de resistance, The Man from Snowy River, all over a paper Drizabone! It certainly looked different enough on the TV for one buyer to fly in from Kyushu, and grannies to travel three hours by train from outer suburban Chiba. “I think I corrupted a few of them,” relishes an unrepentant Inkslinger. “They only learn the basic stuff, normally. And here was another beginner putting colour under characters! Radical!” 

Michael Nagy thought it was pretty radical too. He immediately invited Walker into his Recognising the Republic exhibition. “How we perceive ourselves is an essential part of the republican debate,” he explained. “And Merissa fits in perfectly as a young Australian going out and coming to terms with Asia. God knows what the Japanese think – but I see her work as witty and thought-provoking.” 

Recognising the Republic is on in Sydney at 159 Victoria Street, Potts Point, until September 1 It then moves to Melbourne for the Australian Contemporary Art Fair in the distinctly unrepublican Royal Exhibition Hall, from September 28 to October 2.

DECEMBER 1995

PHOTO: A portion of Merissa’s ’Coffee Ceremony.’ 
Text of the calligraphy reads, ”The kitchen is the 
storage and preparation area.” This series will be 
a major part of the Inkslinger’s exhibition Nov. 
27 – Dec. 3 at Vision Network Gallery in Jingumae.

Inkslinger (ingk sling.er) n. 1) One who slings, throws or hurls ink. 2) Historically: slang describing the “gutter press” of New York in the 1940s-’50s. Sensationalist writers with little regard for reporting facts. 3) Chosen pen name of Merissa Walker. Though not formally trained in the art of shodou, she regards her technique as “rough, ready and raw; straight from the heart, via the mind.” 

Merissa “Inkslinger” Walker is an Australian artist who has resided in Japan for four years. She trained as an architect and makes her living as a freelance designer of spaces, objects and events often utilizing her typo- graphic style of art in the process. She began exploring Asian brush calligraphy (shodou) in 1992 and soon developed a unique style, basically the Ro- man alphabet written, with brush and ink, vertically and from right to left on the page, thus appearing to be abstracted Japanese text. 

Merissa’s works all contain an element of inkslinging, but they come in many shapes and sizes; from canvases to scrolls, from folding screens to coats – even lighting objects, umbrellas and napkins. 

Describing her ambitions, Merissa declares: ”By disguising Western ideas in Japanese form and representing Japanese tradition with a foreign twist, I hope to encourage people of different backgrounds to appreciate one another’s culture.” 

She will be showing a collection of her calligraphy and her art objects called ”SHO Me the Way,” to be held Nov. 27-Dec. 3 at Vision Network Gallery, 5-47- 6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku (tel: 3407-6564); 11 a.m. till 9 p.m. She continues: ”Calligraphy is words; words represent ideas; ideas make us think. Understanding inkslinging requires viewers to draw upon their intrinsic cultural background. The words chosen are represented in rich visual con- texts.” 

Using Japanese ink, brushes and a large dose of Zen, Merissa will sling together the ideas of such diverse conceptualists as Andy Warhol, the Australian Aborigines and Carl Jung. She wonders aloud: “If a group of salarymen went ‘bush’ in central Australia and lived among the Aboriginals, what kind of art and mythology would evolve? How about ’Salaryman Dreaming’? 

”Another example: traditional Tea Ceremony can be defined as taking an everyday thing (a cup of tea, you might say) and elevating it to a Fine Art of national cultural significance.  In the Tokugawa period, the Way of Tea permeated all levels of Japanese society and made an aesthetic culture available to all. “Similarly, Pop Art can be considered as the taking of an everyday thing (tin of soup) and elevating it to fine art. Pop artists drew upon their own contemporary cultures and created an art which celebrates the broad spectrum of their society. Today, a widespread cultural trend which has parallels to both of these might be The Way of Coffee. Hence: ‘Coffee Ceremony’.”

A free-spirited young lady with a refreshing joie d’vivre. Merissa Walker will have an illustrated 1996 calendar of her highly original works, a selection of Christmas and New Year cards, napkins and other gift items available at the exhibition. A most interesting, attractive young woman

  - Corky Alexander

From Sydney’s North Shore to Tokyo via Julian Clary’s Sticky Moment’s is an unconventional road to fame. 

But 28 year old Merissa Walker’s capacity to take the lateral rather than the direct line in matters of design has proved the making of her as a TV designer and in Japanese advertising. More importantly, she has been quietly undermining the ancient art of shodou - Japanese brush calligraphy - since before Peter Greenaway even read The Pillow Book! 

Now she is bringing her revolution home, with her first Australian solo show to open at the Michael Nagy Gallery in Potts Point in May. Every shodou artist has to have a pen- name of the ’Golden Heavenly Flower’ type. It’s awarded by his or her teacher after years of dedicated effort. Merissa, however, after three pages of an instruction manual jumped to chapter 237 and rewarded herself with the name ’Inkslinger’ - borrowed from the New York gutter press - meaning rough, even sacrilegious. 

Appropriate, really... for having discovered that only 50% of shodou can actually be read by anyone in Japan, Merissa had the lateral idea of writing it in English. Not across the page, but vertically like the Japanese. The Man from Snowy River - just to prove she hadn’t lost her Aussie roots - was scrawled all over a Drizabone! 

Merissa’s first Japanese exhibition made the national TV news! Little old grannies travelled from far and wide to be shocked, and at the other end of the scale, internationally minded OL’s (cash rich, novelty poor ’Office Ladies’) solicited her instruction and manage to call her ’Inkslinger Sensei’ (master) without the slightest hint of irony. ”If I was Japanese, I’d either have been stoned or ignored,” the Inkslinger assesses realistically. But Michael Nagy rates her higher: ”God knows what the Japanese think - but I see her work as witty and thought provoking”. 

Merissa Walker’s Alien Mentality exhibition opens at Michael Nagy Fine Art, 159 Victoria Street Potts Point on Thursday 8 May.

The Sydney Morning Herald            

May 8, 1997 

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TAKE a lateral dive into Shodou, the Japanese art of calligraphy, via Merissa Walker’s brushworks, at Michael Nagy Fine Art until May 21. An Australian living in Tokyo, Walker appears to use Japanese characters, while writing vertically in English with a certain flourish. Her nom de brosse is Inkslinger and as a gaijin (an alien), she is able to act as agent provocateur in a world of absolute rules. Her art has intrigued the Japanese, and such is its oblique and witty nature it might be referred to as ”scalliwagraphy”. Her Drizapoem, left, is a synthesis of Henry Lawson, paper, ink and Drizabone. Interpret as you wish. Prices from $250.

Michael Nagy Fine Art, 159 Victoria Street, Potts Point,  ph 9368 1152. Open Wed- Sat llam-6pm, Sunday noon-5pm

 The Japan Times Newspaper, 1997.10.12

AT HARAJUKU'S Graphic Station, Merissa Walker's
"Sacred Cows Make Great Hamburgers" Till Oct 25.

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By MONTE DiPIETRO

A wary brown eye peers out from behind the wire-reinforced window. Slowly, two dead bolts are pulled back and the heavy steel door opens. I slip into Merissa Walker’s live-in atelier in Tokyo’s posh Minami Aoyama as the door slams behind me and the dead bolts are thrown.

     "It’s the last straw," sighs Walker of the harassment she is receiving from her building’s new owner. She holds up an eviction notice that was plastered over her mailbox that morning. "It’s a sign that I should be moving on."

     Which is a shame for two reasons: Firstly, Walker has a great, airy studio space in a city where they are nearly impossible to find. And secondly, her departure from Tokyo and Japan, planned for sometime this winter, will rob the city of one of its most talented and independently successful artists - and a heck of a nice person as well.

     "Inkslinger," as Walker is also known, is one of the very few foreign artists here who has found a way to support herself with her work - which she calls "alphabet shodou," or alphabet calligraphy. At the core of Walker’s medium is a simple but brilliant idea - brush black sumi ink onto washi paper using traditional Japanese strokes and lines, but instead of describing kanji and kana, create a surrealistic font for the Roman alphabet and paint phrases - such as the Yeats quote  "There’s more enterprise in walking naked."

     The resulting collages of phrases on multi-layered paper and gold and silver leaf are expertly crafted and wonderfully fun. They are also good art. Viewed from a distance, the mind’s eye sees them as Chinese characters. Up close, the squiggles morph into letters and words. Deciphering the tangled phrases is a bit like cracking a code - it takes imagination and patience to piece things together. "Sacred Cows Make Great Hamburgers" is a show of 15 new works, now on at graphic station, a small gallery and print shop tucked behind the French Cafe "Aux Bacchanales" in Tokyo’s Harajuku.

     Prices for the artist’s 73x52cm pieces range from 40,000-110,000 yen, and graphic station’s Megumi Tashiro says sales are good. "Our customers are mostly designers and students," she explains "and Walker’s combination of old and new into work that is both beautiful and funny appeals to them." One hour into the packed opening party, two works are already sold. Also moving are the artist’s postcards and 1998 calendars.

     "We sold out 1,500 calendars two years ago - this year I’m doing 2,000. People and businesses also commission me to do New Year’s cards, but mostly my customers are friends," says Walker, "people who meet me and talk to me and like my ideas and see my stuff and they want a piece - they want a piece of me."

     Market-wise, twenty-nine year-old Walker aims to please. "What I do is serious, although it might not always seem that way," explains the artist as a shoulder-length lock of greasy brown hair falls across her forehead. "I practice all the time with kanji to get the shapes and strokes," she says "I’ve books and all that." Walker briefly experimented with exhibiting actual kanji, but found the pursuit energy-consuming and artistically limiting.

     At Gallery Ku, a tiny space in rural Odawara, a trio of elderly calligraphers took Walker aside to point out a grave mistake the artist had made. One of her pieces depicted the kanji for "snow." The kanji was laying on a mountain. "They told me in a very serious voice that snow must always be falling, it should never just lay there," recalls Walker. "I politely explained that I had not been taught this, and after some consideration they told me that I could be excused for not having learned about snow since I didn’t have a proper teacher."

     "Traditional Japanese calligraphy is a sacred cow," says Walker, "But I’m better suited to making hamburgers."

     A noise from the stairway and Walker’s eyes dart toward the door, then she is back at work gluing stretched washi to backing paper for "Tokyo Love," a work in progress that may be the artist’s Tokyo swan song.

     Walker plans to continue making, showing and selling her "alphabet shodou" when she repatriates. She says a recent show at Sydney’s Michael Nagy Gallery went "amazingly well." When she isn’t making hamburgers from sacred cows, the artist reckons on taking up a new pastime - tending the "Moos," a herd of cattle she recently bought and keeps on the Walker family farm down under.

Article from the excellent Japanese contemporary arts site: www.AssemblyLanguage.com

http://www.assemblylanguage.com/reviews/Walker