Swastika 1906

This is 'Swastika', a drawing by Ogino Issui, from around the turn of the century. The surface is covered in symbols, like some kind of ancient textbook, except, of course, it’s also a unique artwork! Look at the texture of the tan paper, and how the pale symbols on the page are drawn with what looks like white chalk. They have a kind of tentative, searching quality to them, almost like they’re trying to escape the page. The blue ink of the swastika and the yin-yang is dense, like a correction, or maybe a clarification. I love the wonkiness of the swastika itself. It reminds me that art is always about a process of trying, of experimenting. It makes me think of Hilma af Klint. She was another artist who combined abstraction with esoteric symbols, searching for a new visual language. Like Klint, Issui invites us to embrace ambiguity. This piece embraces multiple interpretations over any fixed meaning.