"Let the bonds of fate be your nourishment, and fulfill your heart's true purpose."
We were not born to search for answers. Nor to choose only what is right and remain without a scratch. All things turn and change. Having passed through everything, the life that breathes in you: what does it answer to now? The path only you can walk. The light only you can hold. The wish known only to that life: return it now to this earth.
The Feeling in This Work
For those standing at a turning point in life, whose possibilities are about to open wide. This work depicts how the memories and experiences you have built up, all the time of your life, are already radiance itself, an inexhaustible source.
Concept & Background
Joy and sorrow, meetings and partings, success and setbacks. Every event engraved in a life is woven together with the others, gives rise to new meaning, and keeps deepening the radiance. In living, there will be times when we lose sight of ourselves. Even so, I believe life does not lose its light as experiences pile up; rather, it is something that can amplify its radiance.
Technique, Color & Expression
At the center of the canvas, pillars of light in many colors rise in every direction. That light knows no rest and keeps giving off countless lights. By layering colors reminiscent of flames and auroras, centered on yellow and gold, I expressed the energy of life circulating without end and continuing to spread. It is not a phenomenon spreading from one point into the world, but life itself, amplified as countless lights reflect one another.
On Making This Work
I wanted to paint the unfathomable power that life itself holds. People are not beings who are broken by suffering or loss; even while still carrying those things, their lives never lose their radiance.
The light that one life gives off reflects onto someone else's life, and that person's light is passed on to yet another. This work does not depict a single ray of light breaking through the dark night; it depicts a scene in which life itself colors the world.
The same work cannot be delivered again, but with Personal Order Art, I paint a one-of-a-kind work just for you through a conversation with each person.About using the artwork
More about this painting
Why do auroras glow?
The pillars of light in this painting are layered with colors that recall flames and auroras.
Auroras appear when streams of electrically charged particles blowing from the sun — the solar wind — are guided by Earth's magnetic field into the skies near the North and South Poles and collide with oxygen and nitrogen high in the atmosphere. At heights of about 100 to 200 km they glow green, and higher still they glow red. Light swaying like a curtain across the night sky has fascinated people all over the world since ancient times.
May 2024: auroras over Japan
Auroras are almost never seen in Japan. But on the night of May 11, 2024, a magnetic storm caused by a huge solar flare brought magenta "low-latitude auroras" to skies across Japan, including Hokkaido.
A research group including the National Institute of Polar Research analyzed 179 photographs of the aurora taken by members of the public across Japan. They found that the aurora was glowing much higher than usual, up to about 1,000 km, which is why it could be seen from regions so far away. They also explained that it looked magenta rather than red because it overlapped with blue scattered sunlight.
Many people looked up, took photos, and those photos together led to a new discovery.
Because there is darkness, we can see the light
Auroras cannot be seen in the bright daytime sky. The deeper the night, the more clearly their light shows.
I gave this painting, "Break the Night," the words: "Make your destiny your nourishment, and fulfill your true purpose." Joy and sorrow, meetings and partings — everything carved into a life does not dim its light, but deepens its brilliance. Like an aurora lighting the night sky, I believe the light of life grows stronger the more we experience.
Not from one point, but from countless lights
From the center of the painting, pillars of light in many colors rise in every direction. It is not light spreading from a single point to the world, but countless lights reflecting one another and growing stronger.
Just as the photos of many people looking up at the night sky revealed the aurora's secret, I believe that when each person's light overlaps, it becomes a great light that breaks through the darkest night.
Sources
National Institute of Polar Research, Institute of Statistical Mathematics, et al. (research on the low-latitude aurora of May 11, 2024, October 2024) — in Japanese
Weathernews (Low-latitude aurora appears with magnetic storm, May 2024) — in Japanese
¥178,000
tax, frame & domestic shipping included
shipping outside Japan: flat ¥8,000
approx. USD $1,190
A one-of-a-kind original painting.
