About the artwork

When I first reached the mountainside of Jyoyama, after climbing up from a community below, I knew instantly that I wanted to create a work that looks like a flying saucer that has quietly descended from the sky. After many complications, I settled on an elliptical mosaic relief. The title Toru suggests the long-awaited melting of the snows in spring. The mosaic is made of 150,000 pieces of, mainly, white granite. Each piece was embedded by hand. I drew wings, minerals, and tree ammonites, conceived as memories of ancient humans, on them in relief. Variously shaped chairs scattered around the mosaic evoke the scattered ammonites in the relief drawings.