The Flying: Ki (The Flying: Introduction)

Ki (起) is the opening movement of Kawachi Seiko's four-part Flying series, structured according to the classical Chinese rhetorical framework ki-shō-ten-ketsu (起承転結). In this schema, ki establishes the premise — it introduces the subject and initiates forward movement. For Kawachi, whose practice centers on the expressive potential of swirling engraved lines, the introductory print likely presents the compositional and energetic vocabulary that the subsequent three works will develop and complicate. The title The Flying suggests upward motion or liberation from a surface, and Ki as introduction may show forms beginning to lift or separate from stasis. Kawachi prints on washi using hand-carved hardwood blocks, building tonal complexity through multiple ink passes. The series demonstrates his ambition to apply classical literary structure to a visual medium, treating a set of prints as a sustained argument rather than a collection of independent images.