Piece concept (comment from the artist at the time of selection)

Memories anywhere from a few years ago to decades ago or longer somehow have a way of suddenly revisiting you. They occur as something different from our normal recognition or senses and often times as a certain type of discomfort or fear. This remembrance is somehow on a different level than normal senses or memory, and is sometimes difficult to fully understand or recreate as new memories. It's almost as if they amass as part of some common knowledge other than that of our world, and although difficult for our current selves to grasp, they entangle themselves in various coincidental memories and appear to us with a sort of nostalgia. Buddhism teaches transmigration through a cycle touring the six realms of existence, and through my own history created through so many lives and deaths spanning eons before me, I believe I've experienced a bit of that cycle when I encounter all my various memories. For me, stone is often times a means for memories to suddenly reemerge, and I feel I've had a considerable bond with it in past lives. I carve stone, but in addition to carving the stone itself, I also carve out things associated with that stone. As I reach out to begin carving, I feel as if I'm touching a huge, swiftly flowing river from within a tiny bubble floating along it.

Piece introduction

This piece uses greenschist to carve a statue of the nude upper half of a male body using metamorphic stone from the geological zone of the Sambagawa metamorphic belt formed along the shape of the Japanese archipelago during its creation.
Polished with a whetstone, the piece reveals the pattern given to the stone in its formation. This project is an attempt to show what disappears, yet remains; what is forgotten, yet unforgettable.

Piece introduction video