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One day, a thought suddenly occurred to me. Was not my will to paint beautiful bamboo, to paint each individual beautiful bamboo tree too much in the forefront, preventing me from painting the true color of the bamboo?
If was going to spend my life as a discerning bamboo artist, I had to have eyes and a spirit that could look at bamboo honestly. I had to maintain the eyes and the spirit of a child to be able to express honestly the impression that the bamboo gave me...

And I wanted to peel off one more layer of skin than there are in the skin I have now. I wanted to see and paint bamboo more honestly. In order to do that it was absolutely necessary for me to change my ideas. I wanted to put my spirit into a state of nothingness. Maybe if I went to a world that was devoid of color, the color of bamboo would appear more vivid.

That was it! A colorless world – the North Pole or the South Pole. If I was going to go somewhere, I might as well go to the top of the earth, so I decided to go to the North Pole. At the top of the earth’s axis, in a world devoid of color, I wanted to take a fresh look at my paintings and at myself. With this in mind, I eagerly looked up all kinds of information, searched for connections in various places, and ended up aiming to go to the northernmost Inuit village, Siorapaluk. Because it is in Danish territory, I submitted an application to the Danish embassy, and because there is an American base there, I needed a special permit. I spent a hectic time dealing with these formalities, but in the end my wish came true; on June 30, 1991 I left from Narita Airport. For about one month, until July 30, I experienced life in Greenland. I returned to Japan on August 3.