Matsumoto, Kunizo

Japan, 1962

Kunizo Matsumoto was born and raised in Osaka. As a child he attended a school for children with developmental disabilities. In his twenties he participated in a special program that triggered his interest in writing and calligraphy. Kunizo started imitating the memo-pad notes of the staff and began filling notebooks with his versions of kanji, the adopted Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system. In 1988 he terminated the program but continued to independently produce calligraphy, most often on day-to-day calendar pages. After the sheet was fully covered with logograms, he would keep repeating the writing movements in the air as if enchanted. Kunizo Matsumoto has assembled a collection of printed texts from diverse sources: Tokyo Disneyland guidebooks, Kabuki theatre programs and various catalogs and pamphlets. He currently works as a dishwasher in his family’s Chinese food restaurant and writes in calligraphy at night. His works are presented at the Collection de l’Art Brut de Lausanne and abcd Art Brut Collection.