I have been exploring the theme of “coexistence of action and inaction” and incorporated and expressed, through my paintings, the two opposing elements̶ adults’ calculation (action) and children’s innocent emotions (inaction). Over the years, I have used motifs such as flowers, willow trees, mermaids, and chandeliers in my works, and looking back, I realize I have been discovering beauty in their transience.

Cherry blossoms fall off the tree in order to bloom again the following year. By shedding̶thus sacrificing̶its petals, the cherry tree preserves its life for the future. In this seemingly cruel cycle, I find an indefinable beauty of life.

Traversing Japan and California as a painter, I have become aware of how much my sensibilities are rooted in the aesthetics of Japanese culture. Japanese sensibility is represented by the concept of mono no aware (lit. the pathos of things), which refers to deep-felt sensations and emotions evoked through one’s contact with the changing seasons and other outside world phenomena. Beauty resides not in things that remain unchanged forever but in things that perish and change̶the belief is fundamental to Japanese culture.

This exhibition is titled Apoptosis. The term refers to cell death innately programmed in cells to keep organisms alive. Through the reinterpretation of flowers, leaves, and birds as something that transform themselves to nurture new life, I seek to capture the beauty that shines, though ephemerally, in this cycle of life and death.