Artwork Details
Medium: Analog ink drawing (custom aluminum pen, brush, sumi ink)
Subject: A man’s hand, reaching out on impulse to stop her
Theme: Psychological distance between a man and a woman; the different flow of time carried in a line
Artist: Visual Story Artist Kazue Shima
The Story
A hand that chases the woman leaving, or a hand that stops her from going.
The man was unsure of his own footing. If the distance between them closed, she would see it immediately — the hesitation in his eyes.
But perhaps she was afraid too. Afraid of admitting what she saw wavering in his eyes, because no one knew it better than she did. If she let his hand touch hers to stop her, she knew that would become the last thing they confirmed between them.
A line with real speed only comes from an aluminum pen. Tools with even ink flow or a smooth nib carry a different sense of time. A line drawn while hesitating felt uncertain the moment I made it — but layering thick brushwork over it afterward, I realized the timing of that first line was something else entirely.
The hand that wanted, more than anything, to stop her — sometimes it appears in a quiet, slow-moving gesture.
But the hand that stops her on impulse belongs to this story.
Time, inside a story, is always strange, romantic, and enigmatic.
Materiality & Context
This piece is a photograph of a spread from the zine Brush Line — a man’s hand and a woman’s hand, drawn in aluminum pen and sumi ink.
Even heading in different directions, each hand carries its own story.
I chose the aluminum pen for its speed. A line drawn hesitantly but in one continuous motion — something no tool with even ink flow or a smooth nib can produce. That speed itself becomes a way of showing the hesitation in the man’s eyes.
The brushwork added afterward carries an entirely different sense of time.
Where the aluminum pen moves fast, the brush moves slowly, layering over it — so that two different rhythms of time exist within a single image.
A hand that stops on impulse, and a hand that moves quietly: both are held together in one drawing.
