Marble
110×88×76 (h)cm
1300 kg
Force moves towards the stone.
Force is left in the stone and carved into it.
As the stone is carved, no longer able to be contained within,
a revolting force is born that breaks off and turns outward.
I try to take that outward-bound force and redirect it backs inside.
I try to give myself up to the repeated blows
The stone is enfolded, one blow at a time.
Stainless steel
52×60×300 (h)cm
“Gekkaten” is the point on the ground where the moon reaches the zenith. Japan, which lies north of the tropics, has no such point. Moreover, during the exhibition, the angle of the moon’s rise will gradually decline towards summer solstice. Nevertheless, at the “place” of the installation, the impression will be that the moon has risen directly overhead. The sculpture is a “sign” linking the moon and humanity, and is also a “shelter” that succeeds the moon.
Black granite
D0604 / 100×144×92 (h)cm
D0605 / 66×55×38 (h)cm
Bronze, Marble
110×140×300 (h)cm
I found a tree that was hit by lightning in an area nestled in the bosom of the mountains. Seeing the scars, I was startled by the energy of the nature, and at the same time I imagined what that very moment might have been.
143×78×60 (h)cm
Collecting Drops of rain
55×37×67 (h)cm
Rolling down Slope
56×48×45 (h)cm
Ceramics
Ceramics
60×60×702 (h)cm
Cherry wood
50×100×85 (h)cm
250×80×40 (h)cm
Spring is coming.
I thought it was cold, but it had turned into spring.
March 2006
Stainless steel
260×400×240 (h)cm
Stone
Installation size
If you change your point of view for a moment, even though you haven’t changed where you are, the things you had been looking at can suddenly look completely different, and you might feel as though you have suddenly arrived at a different place. You may feel a quiet rush of excitement. Perhaps the truth is found lying somewhere in a corner of a common scenery.
Granite
180×150×15 (h)cm
The road came to an end. Perhaps in a few years the form will be gone, along with all human memories of it. A road that had existed once. Is existence form or memory? What is the truth about form and the creator of form?
Logs, Ceramic blocks, Steel pipes
800×1000×1600 (h)cm
Seen from the south-facing slope of Mt. Haneda, the beautiful, red sun is a striking sight as it sets to the west, beyond the fields and the rice paddies of Kanto Plain that stretches all the way to Mt. Fuji.
In this rice-growing area at the edge of the mountains where the plains start, I wanted to build a tower for the dragon god as an effigy to protect the rain.
My sculpture always embodies the wish to be touched by a great, invisible something.
Steel, Wirerope, Winch, Urethane
240×240×640 (h)cm
Tranquility requires wilderness. The world was born out of tranquility, and the past, present and future coexist as a single entity. When an elevator comes to a momentary stop, tranquility exists there.
F.R.P.
300×240×240 (h)cm
White granite
1000×160×180 (h)cm
Below Mt. Haneda where the sculpture stands, there is a band of Inada granite bedrock that was formed 60 million years ago. I placed a piece of this bedrock in the middle of the grassland on the hillside. There are two rooms, one large and one small, created by removing pieces of stone out of the stone cubes. They are rooms for meditation. Try meditating peacefully in a granite womb, created from the moving crust of the Earth.
White granite
90×120×170 (h)cm
“Hazama” commonly means a narrow space between one thing and another. In contrast to “hazama” as a spatial concept, cutting away a single piece of stone as far as possible can leave a “hazama” of thin mass that separates one space from another. If you think about the spatial “hazama” and the other that is solid, you notice that they are one and the same when taken to the extreme.
Brass, Steel, Copper
60×3600×340 (h)cm
I found a road that came to a dead end. The forest is ahead of me, and behind me I see the road of fresh asphalt that I had just walked on. The forest suddenly blocks the road that is trying to move ahead as if it were expected to do so. It is a bizarre space. In this place where the energies of nature and humanity are condensed, I felt the presence of something enough to nurture the next kind of energy.
Steel, Silver leaf, Stainless steel wire, Paint
300×300×300 (h)cm
Ducking along a path through the dim, moist forest, there is a gaping space where sunbeams gather around. Raydrops from the sky pour down and splash into the forest, threading through the trees. It is as if a gushing well of light spills out nutrients to invigorate the forest.
Light is pooling together in this secret place in the forest.
Wood, Bamboo, Fabric, Paper, Metal, Plastic
2500×6000×300 (h)cm
Animals who made on early start
Slowly but constantly
On and on deeper into the forest, thinking of the ideal land
Where the life is fair
And the significance of living together.
That is what the animals
Are trying to tell us.
Wood, Iron, Stainless steel, Soil, Ceramics, Tile
3000×3000 cm (6boxes)
1, Box-Collecting lights of forest. 69×69×110 (h)cm
2, Box-Sprouting of forest. 145×145×70 (h)cm
3, Box-Searching its memory. 163×163×150 (h)cm
4, Box-Gathering ancients colors. 138×138×120 (h)cm
5, Wooden box-Guardian of tree. 110×110×240 (h)cm
6, Iron box-Guardian of tree. 102×102×200 (h)cm
Granite
180×110×140 (h)cm
3000 kg
Aluminum, Cloth, Iron
1000×1500×82 (h)cm
I wanted to create a piece that would disappear into the wind and out of sight. That is not to deny the existence of sculpture, but I dreamed of things beyond the mundane, like a hidden and unrequited love, or a dangerous relationship. Just as no day can escape a sunset, there is no night without dawn. Amid painful, submerged secrets, I felt the existence of sustenance that nurtures passion.
Granite
130×100×10 (h)cm
For a long time, I’ve wanted to install my own sculpture here. As I was drawn to this place, I had somehow decided on the material, form and title at some stage. Emboldened by the season,
I will place a sculpture entitled “Springtime” here.
Steel
296×293×24 (h)cm
23×800×18 (h)cm
Paved roads and dirt roads are as similar as sisters as they climb into gentle slopes. Wanting to express the cutout space as it existed, I decided to place two pieces just barely touching the ground. These two pieces of iron, without thickness, are flowers brought into bloom by heat. They bloom midway between my own will and the will of the iron.
115×110×232 (h)cm
2300 kg
White granite
Stone Like Pillar-Extension and Intensive Magnitude XII
50×50×244 (h)cm
1200 kg
White granite
Akagi-komatsu andesite
87×148×98 (h)cm
Each person has a life, and each person has a home.
These homes must hold all kinds of stories.
I wanted to build my home on this beautiful land and begin a story of my own.
White granite, Soil, Plant
500×1500×50 (h)cm
2500 kg
Withered tree, Dead tree, Beech seedling
1000×1000×700 (h)cm
A year ago, looking at a dead red pine that was clearly different from the leafless trees awaiting spring, “death” took possession of me. Before the stark reality of destruction of nature as a price we pay for civilization, there is nothing that can be done.
In order to return to our distant and forgotten origins, and to set out again to take a new first step, I must believe in a small hope of growing buds this spring.
Wood, Stainless Steel Mesh, Synthetic Fiber
3250×2500×130 (h)cm
This site is at a plateau in Amabiki Village. I love the ever-changing scenery of this place, where a 1400-square meter marsh gently melds into the surrounding forest. I’ll never forget when I first laid eyes on the marsh, a meeting that inspired me to create objects that could float upon its surface — wire mesh bodies suspended on a raft along with giant synthetic fiber leaves which I arranged to resemble a Lotus flower. The weight of the water, the movement of the wind, the power of buoyancy — these are all concepts I wished to weave into this piece.
Ceramics, F.R.P., Wood, Metal
190×1638×237 (h)cm
I have been drawn to the whisper of a floating source…
I wish I had some time
to quietly have a look at the rhythm of the air.
Stone, Wood
130×70×195 (h)cm
Aluminum
700×700×370 (h)cm
When I was looking for a place to install my works, I found the stone gate of the Aoki Shinto shrine. Then I stood still at the entrance to its precincts. There, I decided to enshrine my sculptures which I created with lively colors. Nearby, there is a quiet approach to the village shrine.
Zelkova, Cherry wood
35×230×110 (h)cm
35×60×47 (h)cm
This is a piece of keyaki, a Japanese zelkova wood that had been lying in my studio for ages. The rocks that were tangled within its roots were crushed up by the energy of its growth. As the days passed looking for a form, I developed an image of beans suddenly popping and setting down their roots.
Iron
60×60×60 (h)cm
×6pieces
White granite
110×140×240 (h)cm
Gelatin silver print, Acryl, Aluminum, Stainless steel
2×106×180 cm
Distant water
White granite
50×100×170 (h)cm
Plum and persimmon trees grow in a walled space of an abandoned residential lot. A dried up water pipe stands alone next to a rusty pump like a dead branch. If you dig down into the ground from there, one would expect to reach a water vein, but I decided to carve upwards, looking for a distant, lost vein of water.
Steel, Rubber, Urethane foam, Nut
186(ø)×71.5 (h)cm /Table
47.1×45×85 (h)cm ×4pieces /Chair
There was nobody in the waiting room of the bleak, unmanned station building. While I waited for the train, I heard only the echo of my breath and footsteps. I wanted something that would imply human presence while serving the purpose of the waiting room. That became a table and chairs that make sounds, which would hold communication between the people who gather in the waiting room.
Black granite
80×130×85 (h)cm
My idea in producing this piece was to make the most of the bulk of the block of raw material, by creating a space within the mass.
The result is a basket-like shape made of stone.
I was aiming for a shape that would look like a combination of two triangular pyramids from a particular angle.
White granite
110×115×108 (h)cm
Hon-komatsu andesite, Synthetic rubber, Steel, Wood, Plant seeds, Pieces of old books
180×300×360 (h)cm
If you stand on the edge of the hill, where pottery fragments of the Jomon period have been unearthed, a scenery of terraced hills that interweaves humanity and nature spreads before you. What did people of the distant past see from this place?
Stuffing the interior of the elliptical ring thickness with full of plant seeds and pieces of paper from a Japanese text on local topography written in the early eighth century. I offered up the sculpture with only the weight of the natural stone at the edge of a barley field. By linking a simple form to the place it stands in, I wanted to call forth the animistic life force that is hidden in the soil.
F.R.P.
130×150×250 (h)cm
×7pieces
Let’s build a rainbow bridge in the piercingly high, cleared vast sky.
Like the flight trails of Flying-Seven make endless bows to be a bridge from the earth.
Steel
150×350×300 (h)cm
×3pieces
I created this sculpture as I was waiting for spring. The land alongside the Sakura River has returned to its original appearance after the two-month exhibition period. Overgrown with verdant reeds, the breeze rustles gently over the land.
Pink granite
110×160×200 (h)cm
2500 kg
Black granite, White granite
147.5×162.5×85.5 (h)cm
3500 kg