​The massive tree, fallen, lay in the ravine. The tree had rotted through, turning to dirt from the roots up. The color of the tree has transformed into the color of the dirt. And by now, most likely, that tree has been worn down by the wind and rain, leaving no trace of its former self. That sight, which impressed me with the magnitude of nature’s wonder and providence, still has not left my mind’s eye.

 

I felt at that moment just how tremendous, how overwhelming, the mystery of nature, the hidden hand of nature can be. And that eidetic image remains etched in my mind, refusing to leave me. 

 

It is just a matter of time before everything that stands on the dirt will return to dirt. When I think of how I, and my paintings too, will also in due time be reduced to dust, it strikes me that nothing in this world is that tremendous. But at the same time, during the limited time that I have life here, I can keep a record, - all I can do is keep a record, day by day, that serves as evidence, as a trace of the flame that is my life. 

 

Nature, however you look at it, is always unadorned and fresh, beautiful. I wonder if my work - my paintings - captures that unadorned, fresh and beautiful world? That would be rather difficult. No, it would be impossible. And even if my work could capture nature in that manner, I would want to paint works that, like nature, one never tires of looking at. That is all that I want in my art. 

 

Canvas is still made just from those old and familiar materials: cotton or hemp. No matter how or when you look at canvas, one senses in it a certain warmth, an affinity to it. It is the unadorned and fresh aesthetics of natural fibers that give that feeling; I think that the sense of fresh simplicity that comes from such natural fiber makes it itself a work of art. Maybe I am ruining that beautiful canvas. Maybe humans just inevitably manage to destroy nature. Wherever the human hand has passed, nature has been deformed. 

 

Just sitting still, painting there for hours, is suffocating. I paint for an instant, and then run out of the studio as if I were trying to escape something. I do so in part in an attempt to erase the present moment. And then, after a while, I may come back and paint again with a new perspective. I repeat this process again and again. I continue to pursue the work until it pleases me. Sometimes I even boldly destroy a painting from years ago, and then proceed to paint it all over again.  And then sometimes I enjoy looking at a painting after a considerable amount of time has passed. I wonder why the ones painted with uninhibited energy or even the destroyed ones seem to exude more vigor and vitality. 

 

What is painting? I still don’t really know the answer. Could we say painting is the trace from combustion of life? Or maybe, I think, the ego is most freely and definitely expressed in the world of unconscious. The more one tries to express oneself, the ego become self-conscious, hence, the expression becomes contrived. Therefore, I don’t think there is an answer to painting. I have no idea as to what I should paint, and at which point I should stop painting. There, in the midst of such uncertainty, I just paint. I have nothing in mind what I will paint. I just want to paint something which is nothing, that will inspire me endlessly to go on.