2018.6.15
I think the fascinating point of suiboku (ink wash) paintings is encouraging the dialog between the strong images in my mind and the spontaneous events arising from the sumi (black ink).
Because of the topographical influence of the volcano, many broad rivers flow in Kumamoto. When I am a little tired, I feel it is just right to go to a river rather than the sea or the mountains. The rivers I choose usually flow leisurely along matching my walking pace, and I feel the flow of the river runs close beside our daily life.
I have always liked nature since my childhood; so, every time I went to Kumamoto, I, being born in Tokyo, felt, “Everything I love is here!” I spent days hiking in the mountains carrying my lunch box, or swimming in a river in the heat of summer. One day early in the afternoon of a hot day, with columns of clouds rising beyond the mountains… in a twinkling, the sky overhead darkened, and the hills and fields were hidden in surging sheets of rain. I felt strongly in my very young mind: “There is a great being in the heavens.” The earth trembled, and black clouds and thunder approached with a rub-a-dub roar; the sky was drawn tight and I felt as if I was inside the shell of a pounding drum. Witnessing the beauty of the raging storm like a veil completely covering everything, I was overwhelmed by this powerful and awesome being existing in the heavens; I felt fear in my contracting stomach, and I sincerely offered my deepest respect.
After this event, as I grew older, my reverence for nature increasingly intensified. But at later times, when I was again overwhelmed and trembling with emotion, I felt unstable, making it difficult to keep balanced. To cope with this, I wanted to sublimate such overflowing feelings by expressing them in some way. This was the beginning of my drawing and painting.