STATEMENT (EN)
Metropolitan Dynamism and Animal Instinct
The capacity to love and draw inspiration from nature is one of the most precious human attributes. By observing the untamable natural world, we develop sociality — learning from its laws what can be patterned and what remains inherently unpredictable.
I love the metropolis. Gazing down at a city’s nightscape, I see the culmination of ancestral wisdom and human endeavor, reminding me of how incredible humans are. Though emerging spontaneously by chance, this landscape mirrors the beauty of nature itself. A captivating chaos exists here, where meticulous design and unplanned spontaneity collide. Disneyland stands out as the ultimate symbol of curated landscapes and human direction, blowing me away with its sheer scale and grandeur.
Yet, our connection to nature remains vital. Without it, we grow arrogant. Living only within a well-ordered environment fosters a hollow sense of omnipotence. Also, in a society where we are driven to adapt, we inevitably pursue efficiency, reducing our fellow human beings to objects, tools, or mere numbers and symbols. But when we reduce others to data points, what truly separates us from an AI? An artificial intelligence can never experience what it truly means to touch this world: to travel to an island, swim in the sea, soak in a hot spring, and rest at a local guesthouse. It cannot share a conversation with a local —someone born and raised there, who left for a time, only to return and live his life. It cannot savor regional flavors, or fall asleep with a weary body against a cold ice pillow. It cannot paint a picture at home while feeling the sting and itch of bug bites as a souvenir from the island. The raw and authentic experiences etched into human skin are deeply layered within my work.
Behind the Scenes: Underwater Research on Okushiri Island, September 2025
The Ripples of the Water Render your Heart Translucent
Seemingly ordered, yet driving toward entropy.
Seemingly patterned, yet ultimately unpredictable.
The world is surely far too complex to be bounded by my recognition.
It’s vaster and deeper.
Everything, everywhere, is flowing and intersecting.
Seen from afar, a grand current; looking closer, a subtle flow.
And every particle of glittering light emerges.
Each particle holds its own individual heart, moving boldly and trembling gently.
Uncontrollable strokes and dissonant colors are hidden within.
Affects of elusive forms and colors are in a state of constant flux,
shaped by shifting states of mind that endlessly influence one another like ripples.
By lovingly capturing this ever-changing world,
I want to feel deeply glad to have been born.
I want to live fully capturing every shade, tone, and variation my mind and body can feel, leaving them behind for the world.
Waves, splashes, and ripples are fleeting and fragile,
never appearing in the same shape or color twice.
I spend six months, a year, or even a year and a half,
taking a long time to reconstruct that bittersweet, precarious moment.
The process of meticulously layering light and shadow could be a natural remedy for my anxiety and loneliness.
Surrealism, Impressionism, and Underwater Immersive Art
The moment I encounter a scene that makes me think "That’s it!", a physiological reaction locks my brain and body to it. I continue to create because I want to freeze that single moment and paint it into existence. These are not scenes I often see in my everyday life: a water splash resembles a translucent curtain; a giant foot shimmers beneath the surface; a rock on the seabed gazes up at the sky; mesmerizing aquatic ripples invite me to dissolve into the deep; and the ocean floor that is visible through the troughs of the waves lifts itself upward. While these are all spontaneously occurring phenomena in the real world, they exude a surreal and dreamlike atmosphere. This conscious process—deciding exactly which fragment of time to freeze, which angle to look from, and which part to capture—is itself a concept born from contemplation of natural phenomena. Although my work is based on photographs, emphasizing and bringing out the aquatic patterns and particles of light allows me to transcend realism, reviving the raw essence of the scene I actually behold. Furthermore, it embodies surrealist expression by visualizing the intricate complexities of human society, the mind, and the body.
This same lock occurs while painting; there is a precise moment when I apply the exact color to the exact spot with an absolute stroke. It could be just a tiny dot, or a stroke thin and short, but that single touch alters the entire impression. Immediately after that moment, the painting begins to radiate; clarity increases, and oil paint transforms into liquid water. I use as many colors as possible. Most of the time, I mix colors on my palette, introducing subtle variations even to shades that appear almost identical. By employing the technique of divisionism on the canvas, I maximize the optical mixing effect of juxtaposed colors. As these delicate shifts accumulate, a dramatic transformation emerges, making the painting emit a radiant brightness as if it were glowing from within.
Through my paintings, viewers are enveloped in a multitude of sensations: a feeling of floating, refreshment, a comforting embrace, serenity, mesmerization, the deep subconscious, a sense of return, and dissolution. This immersion into a profound psychological world evokes an intimate dialogue with the self, preparing the soul to open into conversations with others. This is the essence of the Underwater Immersive Art I create.
