young girl with birds in her hair

Small birds nest in a young girl's elaborately arranged hair, an image that blends the tenderness of Kawano's child subjects with a touch of magical realism. The birds — their forms simplified into bold marks by his carving — find in the girl's hair the ideal perch, a domestic landscape within a domestic scene. The image may reference classical Japanese poetry's association of women's hair with the natural world, or simply represent a child's fantasy of closeness with wild creatures.