I am a Tokyo-based Japanese painter born in 1984. I received my MFA in Fine Arts from Tama Art University in Tokyo and have held several solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Kyoto, Helsinki and London. I have also participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally.
When I was a kid, I enjoyed drawing and like everyone else, started painting with colour pencils and watercolours in a representational way. While studying Art History at university I was attracted to abstract expressionism. Since then, I’ve been trying to render intangible things, like my thoughts and feelings, into the abstract. My current interest lies in depicting the landscape of my mind and the nature of its existence.

I often paint imaginary scenes that I feel most comfortable with. I imagine walking to a place – a calm, peaceful and tranquil place existing in my mind.

‘Sansui ga’ is a landscape painting style, originating from China. ‘Ga’ means painting or drawing. Sansui paintings are basically painted with ‘sumi’ (black ink) and brushes. Often, the subjects are mountains, valleys, waterfalls, and rivers, but they are imaginary landscapes, painted in adoration of nature or in respect of religious belief in mountains. I feel intuitively fascinated by certain landscapes and I try to fuse the atmosphere extracted from them into my thoughts. Then I express the mix through my paintings.

In my works, I try to present the atmosphere surrounding landscapes. I think that it is what John Berger calls “relationship between things and ourselves”. What is important to me is to intuitively understand and sensitively interact with nature.

There is a word in Japanese, ‘Ka chō fu getsu’. Each sound literally means: flower, bird, wind, moon; but the word itself implies ‘the beauties of nature’. These four subjects were considered as essential elements to express nature, and I respect that idea.

I use traditional Japanese painting materials such as powdered mineral pigments – ‘iwa enogu’ –, ‘sumi’ (Japanese ink), and Japanese paper ‘washi’, which is made from native plants. As these materials are sensitive to temperature and humidity, they demand artist’s skill to use them in the optimal conditions. Like you imagined, I often paint on a wet paper and use random stains. Sumi is not just black ink, it has several different colours deep inside. When one uses it, one should fully understand its attribution and will need skills to handle it. I try to leverage this intricate colour of ‘sumi’ in my paintings.

Thank you for your interesting point of view. Kintsugi is one of the methods for reparation. It shows us that repairing can give or add beauty to broken things. Actually, implying Kintsugi in Adoration IX was no intention of mine. Adding gold was kind of a spontaneous action. I like to give viewers the freedom to feel and think openly about my art. I appreciate what you felt.

In Japanese culture, there are traditional ideas that everything is constantly changing and that beauty exists in the transience of nature. Humans admire flowers because they bloom for a short period of time. People see mortality in beauty. A similar idea is incorporated in my work Ephemera. What an artist feels or thinks might be ephemeral, but I believe it becomes eternal once it's rendered in his/her art.

I like to take photos when travelling. The photo of a forest was taken in Lapland (Finland). The snowy, calm and serene landscape enchanted me.

At the moment I am preparing for three upcoming exhibitions, which are scheduled in a couple of months in Japan. I am currently interested in Chinese Taoism and suppose that some concepts of it might be related to the concepts that underlie my works.