Our memories do not preserve what we have seen as it is. They are worn away by time, layered, and intermingled— dividing into what remains and what fades, until, before we know it, they form strata.
At the beginning of my long-standing series Hito no Fūkei (“Human Landscapes”), there was a contemplation: that a person is made of memory.
Just as the accumulation of time and memory shapes a human being, landscapes, too, gradually transform over time. Within them, I feel there are places where human memories are born and remain.
The scenes encountered along a journey, the sensations that quietly emerge at night— I create by moving between painting and photography, guided by those moments when forgotten memories resurface.
Photography preserves an instant, allowing us to trace light, air, and the marks of time. Painting, on the other hand, holds the fluctuations of memory and emotion, retaining their ambiguity— making memory visible, and giving form to a longer span of time than photography can hold.
Though this practice begins as something for myself, the human connection and empathy that arise through the images it produces bring me a profound sense of joy.
Both people and landscapes, beyond what is visible, contain layers of time that cannot be grasped at a glance. To me, this is something deeply beautiful and precious.
