“Language is the architecture that shapes our interaction with the world around us, providing reference points, defining lines and points of contact. Language is alchemy (verbum significatum), able to transform the vibration of a thought seed into matter”, visual artist Cadine Navarro wrote in her recent book, 40 Things I’ve Learned.

In her poem, Navarro merges several recurring recent motives in her artistic oeuvre, which is informed by diverse cultural influences and notions of connectedness. In an impressive ongoing body of work, titled Voices on Paper, or Language Maps, she captures the vibrations of spoken language in poetic, marble-like ink drawings on Japanese paper. “If we consider how repeated word-sounds can affect neural activity in the brain, change therefore starts with the words we use.”

Excerpt from ‘A Peripatetic Journey’, Cadine Navarro in conversation with Roel Arkesteijn, 2017

Above: Artist with Fukudu-san, Fukui, Japan, 2015
A forty-day pilgrimage back to Japan led me to study with the late Fukuda-san, one of the last living masters of suminagashi, the ancient art of floating ink. I am deeply grateful for the time spent apprenticing under my sensei, who taught me how breath, stillness, and attention shape pattern.Inspired by this practice, I began to exchange breath for sound—translating sonic vibration into visual form.

Below: deSingel, International Arts Center, Antwerp, 2018
First live collaborative performance of my suminagashi work together with Belgium composer, Gillis Sacré and Astrid Stockman, soprano Bl!ndman String Quartet