Reflection on Winter

Here, I will share some of my works along with my trivial writings.

As this is a format where long texts are interspersed with "Unrelated" works, I hope it can be appreciated as such.

Please forgive the incomplete translation.

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Since I was a child, I have been dominated by an insatiable desire for someone to listen to me and understand me.

Because of this, controlling my emotions has always been difficult, and creating serene Animations became the only way to suppress those feelings.

Through painting, I found work and gained a sense of self-worth, and I finally reached a point where I could remain calm enough to read books. (Come to think of it, it was Tumblr over a decade ago that appreciated my pixel art and built a bridge to my present!!)

However, at some point, I forgot who it was I wanted to understand me and why it mattered in the first place.

As I poured my thoughts into words and delved deeper into reflection, I realized that philosophy and reading could help me in this pursuit of being understood.

However, by the time I reached that realization, I had also acquired an unsettling awareness that language dulls the visual senses.

In fact, it imparted a slight sense of symbolism to my artwork, while dulling its intuitive qualities.

This conflict likely explains why my art oscillates between symbolic representation and intuitive visual expression.

It has grown more pronounced this year. It also explains why I’ve found myself engaging in this sort of self-reflection more often than ever before.

My works exist in a complementary relationship with my self-reflection.

However, this is by no means a teleological approach—it is rooted in intrinsic impulses.

I simply, purely, and genuinely enjoy things like Gas stations on winter nights, side entrances of public facilities, rural port towns, or the colors of 100-yen lighters. That’s all there is to it, and that’s why I paint.