One day, on one of my trips to the bamboo forest in Rakusei to look for suitable subject matter for my paintings, my feelings and the aspect of the bamboo forest happened to be in perfect accord. When I saw the moso bamboo, I thought, "This is it!" Even when I am laughing, in my heart I think, "I don't want to lose". This is the idea that I associate with my image of bamboo.

Moso bamboo is thick, sturdy and reaches straight up to the sky. Its dense roots grow so wildly and with such vitality that they even break through the concrete.
And it always stands perfectly straight, putting on a brave face. I could recognize its toughness in myself.
I felt myself in the appearance of the bamboo, and my spirit in its roots.
"I am bamboo and bamboo is me."
Ever since then I have been painting bamboo.
But at that time I didn't know anything about it.
I only knew of thick bamboo, thin bamboo and bamboo shoots.
I only found out that the first bamboo I came across was moso bamboo a while after I saw it.
I felt that the bamboo deserved better, and bought books and attended workshops in order to learn about its classification and structure.


The Tale of the Shining Princess (1994)
130.3 x 97.0 F60
This is a painting of moso bamboo, which is in fact me, the moon and outer space. Since 1994 I have been displaying it at all of my exhibitions so that visitors can touch the canvas and get an immediate feel for it.

The year that I discovered bamboo was 1984.
From that point on I have been gradually deepening my understanding of it.
I am also learning about bamboo-related proverbs, about the fact that bamboo invariably makes an appearance in Shinto and Buddhism, and that bamboo figures prominently in many folk tales from all over Japan,
It would be interesting to use The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter as a theme in future projects.

We only have one life.
So we want to be particular about how we spend it.
It must have been my destiny to discover bamboo.