For a long time in my artist career, I’ve being working on the theme of the cosmos flower. Growing in colonies, appearing at summer’s end, this sweet flower is imbued with somehow a nostalgic aspect.

The tangled interweaving of stems and buds, it expresses the original definition of cosmos: an expansive, perhaps infinite vastness filled with order and beauty of a sort, yet also imbued with something like a feeling that all struggle in life is in vain.

Cosmos in Japanese is called ‘akizakura’ (autumn cherry blossom), and therefore it felt necessary to turn my gaze to ‘sakura’ (cherry blossom) that perhaps best symbolizes Japan. The protruding trunks seemed to me as a dragon flying up towards heaven, and in the intertwining branches through which blossoms cascade I see both the “calm” of full bloom and the “motion” of falling blossoms that form a whole universe.

With the photos I’ve taken, I analyze and superimpose image upon image, I add and subtract layers in my picturesque style. I try to overlay countless photographic fragments, trace time, and seek to somehow approach the beauty hidden within the cosmos or sakura flower.

Like Noh, where 100 different stories by 100 different people are born in the imagination of the viewer, my works are difficult to convey with words.