Please tell us about your remarkable technique of painting?

My paintings are oil on canvas, varying from abstract to concrete. I finish all my paintings by running a two-meter-wide brush from top to bottom before the paint dries. Using this method means part of the painting cannot be modified. Especially on huge screens, it is impossible to manage from one end of the screen to the other, and it often fails.If I make a mistake, I will have to start over from scratch. This method takes a considerable mental toll. However, the joy of success is incomparable to anything I have ever experienced. This happens when the surface I see goes beyond anything I would have ever expected. There is not much pleasure to be derived when things exactly go as planned. I found that the more oil used, the more the paint will spread out like water. On the other hand, lesser oil will make the paint harder, producing more irregular spots. What is expressed completely differs depending on the paint’s thickness. Also, when drawing a city’s landscape, the scenery disappears after running the brush. From my experience, I discovered the right dimensions, such as the window sizes, so the scenery would not be lost. It’s not good if it disappears too much, and it’s not good if it’s too visible, so I value the balance. I find it more beautiful to have a slightly imperfect result than things perfectly going as planned.

Is there any particular reason why you use only (or mostly) black paint in your works?

I’ve always been fascinated by Goya’s Black Paintings series in Madrid. Aside from this, I love Picasso’s Guernica, Pierre Soulages’s black works, and Frank Stella’s The Black Paintings. I find Goya’s Black Paintings especially moving no matter how many times I see them. In Japan, we have a culture of ink and lacquer, with their beauty stemming from the gloom. The French philosopher Gille Deleuze said that a world without others is ruled by dazzling light and bottomless darkness. My works are black, representing the bottomless darkness. However, they do not stand for destruction. Black can take shape from the darkness.