TWENTY ONE CENTURY
2002. acrylic paint on plywood, 385 x 210 x 38 cm
Photo: Keizo Kioku
Courtesy: Mizuma Art Gallery
Copyright ©2002 Ujino Muneteru, All rights reserved.
Twenty One Century
After the end of my project 'Onomatopoeia Typography Plan' in 1998, it gave me an idea to draw wrong English words by onomatopoeia katakana characters when I read an article in a news paper where company was apologizing for miscounting the remaining days until the 21st century (they thought it became 21st century in year 2000).
In Twenty One Century, this is an example of katakana word that is incorrect in English language. The correct English grammar is 'Twenty First Century'. I was taught in elementary school that Katakana is used to write 'Onomatopoeia' and 'Words of foreign origin' (English). I thought it was strange and not right to replace words of foreign origin that are written in alphabets into katakana characters.
Japlish that derives from mistakes is unique to Japan and I shamelessly found this very interesting. One day I said, "what would happen if I were to visually express Japlish, mistaken English words into onomatopoetic katakana character like in comic books, than I produced this work, which became the outset of this Nippon Series.
Form and pattern of each character are taken from famous Japanese comic books from the 70s but colors used in this piece are selected from contemporary Japanese cities or emphasized symbolic colors of Japan.