Returning around 2

Artist's Note
One day I was on the train, crossing the river. Leaning by the window, I could clearly feel the living scenery unfolding beyond the glass. Was it the colors scattered around evening, or did the strong sunlight make me think it was that hour? Pinpointing exactly when in the day it was is harder than you'd think. Rather, that moment simply rises in me unbidden, and even now I can still feel that hour. A single hue, taking on many expressions, settled on the rippling water from far across the sky — and watching this together with me, it made me feel everyone alive who breathed in that same instant. I want to say it is because I saw, in those dazzling, scattering things, that everyone, myself included, is connected. Each time I face an unfamiliar moment, and yet grow used to it as if I had always known it. The lines I draw with a flick or a long sweep of my hand race across canvas, across paper. And in that moment they prove, fully and absolutely, the simple fact of "being." My true heart can become clear inside the lines I have drawn and the layers that accumulate. The "I"s inscribed in each moment must surely pass through me and reach out to others. Because of this, my work — unfolded as gesture — releases an exclamation of wonder toward all who breathe alongside me, and dreams of connection. The work I express through color and line therefore touches upon respect for the other. And so they, too, are no different from me.

I raise one hand and sweep it broadly through the air, drawing a line. In that moment, it is not difficult to discover the self that simply exists. Even if the fading of a passed trajectory makes one doubt that anything was ever there, the act itself is not erased; its mark remains. Perhaps this most simple and direct act is, more than anything else, the most fitting proof that I am living and present in this very moment. I trust that my true heart will be expressed naturally through the act of drawing lines — an act that is the result of intuition and that reveals the inner self exactly as it is. Through the experience of joining lines together and letting them accumulate on the surface through repetition, I become more truly myself; and to say that the assemblage of "I"s inscribed in each moment is no different from myself is, I believe, no exaggeration.
At times I think existence may be revealed even more clearly through intuitive means than through verbal proof. That is, drawing close to essence may, paradoxically, allow the meaning of being to emerge most vividly when sincere moments accumulate, even without my forcing my own self forward. This is a sincerity realized before words — at one's original place, within each moment. The experience of meeting myself through the work inevitably leads me to give my heart to the moments of others as well. Rather than being absorbed solely in my own existence, looking inward also makes it impossible not to recall others who exist alongside me, and so the weight of coexistence settles into my work without difficulty.
My painting is completed by drawing lines on canvas and letting the surface fill steadily. In my imagination the lines within the surface extend and connect even beyond the surface, and once they return they settle back upon the canvas. The forms each line creates are not the result of seeking out points already determined by thought; they are made instantly, following intuitive response. Over a long period, I have continued this process by covering the lines on the surface entirely with a color close to the ground tone, then beginning anew to build up another layer. Recently I have added another method — covering only parts of the surface rather than the whole, and laying new lines on top to build a layer. This stems from the thought that each moment of revealed existence may not gain meaning only by accumulating sequentially; rather, the existence held within each moment may already carry meaning in itself. When all the moments appear at once on the canvas surface, it becomes natural to remember every being held within them, including myself, and to seek connection. Showing myself through this work, expressed in intuitive gestures on the canvas, ultimately touches upon respect for all other beings who exist.