Mineral
Abstract Matter
Mineral Series – Click Image for Details
This series depicts matter. Not matter that actually exists on Earth, however, but matter in an abstracted form.
Until now, I have painted light itself. In those works, the subject was a source that emitted its own light. What this series depicts is not a light source, but secondary light—light reflected off matter. Light acquires expression only when it touches the surface of matter. A wet surface glints sharply; a dry surface absorbs light; a coarse-grained surface scatters it finely. Differences in texture, the diversity of reflection. What appears there is an expression far more complex than that of the light source itself. I want to capture that moment.
What is depicted, however, is not any specific matter. Not rock, not ore, not water. It is matter that exists nowhere. And yet the matter within the picture has weight, has complex form, and shows movement. Cracking, corrosion, sedimentation, flow. The expression matter reveals over long stretches of time, and the expression light reveals for only an instant—the two meet within a single picture.
It is this expression, held by matter, that I wish to set down on the surface.
Light strikes dense matter that absorbs much of its energy. What returns appears weighted by the surface itself: reflected light made heavy, muted, and perceptually slowed by contact with matter.
Vein of Light 光脈
Across rust, umber, and burnt stone, a vein of water follows the land’s low places, trickling through cracks. Two temperatures, two speeds of time, meet on one surface.
Water Vein 水脈
A form begins to float from matter without fully leaving it. Its mass loosens from the surrounding surface while retaining mineral texture, suspended close to the material from which it emerged.
Suspension 浮遊
Erosion begins when something enters matter and alters its structure from within. Light, water, and pressure move through the mineral surface, weakening boundaries and transforming density without destroying its presence.
Erosion 浸食
Phase holds matter at an uncertain threshold, where light, memory, and material seem to overlap. A dark form gathers within a luminous field, suggesting emergence, disappearance, or passage beyond itself.
Phase 位相
Primordial Sea 原初の海
Life emerges within the sea. Pale light gathers at the center as faint textures layer like sediment—primordial life before form. The series closes at its deepest source: matter awaiting shape.
Saturation 飽和
Saturation describes matter gradually filled by water and light until its internal condition changes. Color, density, and surface begin to merge, suggesting a material approaching another state without fully dissolving.
Drift layers pale green, gray, and ochre beneath shifting white light. Without a fixed center or direction, matter, color, and light move continuously between emergence and disappearance, remaining unresolved.
Drift 彷徨
Subterranean Stream 伏流水
Water flows underground like a hidden vein of ore, invisible from the surface. Spray bursts against pale stone as sediment darkens below, momentarily revealing the unseen current.
Sedimentation describes matter gradually settling from a pale field into density below. Light remains within the surface as particles, traces, and tonal shifts accumulate into a darker state over time.
Sedimentation 沈殿
Flowing Water 流水
Water, or perhaps ice—something briefly formed is flowing. Horizontal streaks pull across the surface as light skims the current and darkens into depth, before the shape dissolves into flow.
Matter begins to loosen from its own structure. Pale mineral forms drift free while remaining connected to the surface, suspended between weight and release, substance and light, without fully separating.
Liberation 遊離
Water of Life 命の水
Water sustains life. At Lourdes, France, spring water is famed for healing. This work evokes that energy: blue matter blooming through weathered green, lit within like a quiet pulse.
Water emerges from a luminous source, rising continuously before returning underground. Though hidden from sight, it continues flowing, eventually resurfacing far away as a source sustaining life.
Source 水源
Blue matter gathers near the surface, then descends into darkness. Light weakens as depth increases, while traces of violet remain suspended within the field. Submergence becomes a passage into density.
Submergence 潜水
Water wells from between rocks—not the rock itself, but softness seeping from hardness. Cracked lime, moss stains, and gold frame an emergence the hard surface cannot restrain.
Spring Water 湧水
Latency focuses on a material state in which almost nothing appears to happen. Shifts in light, density, and texture suggest change that remains present within matter without yet becoming visible.
Latency 潜在
Seepage traces water moving slowly through mineral matter. Light spreads laterally across the surface, suggesting moisture entering small openings, carrying particles, and gradually changing density, color, and structure from within.
Latent Image 潜像
Genesis captures matter at the moment of becoming. A pale field gathers around a darker center, as if form were condensing from mist, pressure, and mineral light into presence slowly.
Genesis 生成
An indistinct form hovers before recognition. Boundaries blur, meaning remains unsettled, and the image holds the frustration of a memory almost recalled: present to the mind, yet still unreachable, unresolved.