This painting was the first grand theme that made me wonder if I would be able to paint it. Not the earth [but the ground]. The earth is grand, but the ground is grander. It includes the sky. In fact, we might say that the earth belongs to the ground.

The land of chalk. A solitary color that does not allow anything to mix with it. It is difficult to keep white. Perhaps that is why people yearn for white. We always want to keep in mind a heart as white as snow that melts when touched by warmth.

I love the sky. I like to look at the stars and the moon, and I've had plenty of times when I've walked into a ditch looking at the sky and fallen into a ditch, or hit a telephone pole on my bicycle. (I'm just the type of person who finds space itself scary, so I'm afraid to go there.) My mother and sister love celestial bodies and space. My mother is interested in space itself, and my sister likes planetariums and myths involving the constellations, and they have often talked to me about celestial bodies ever since I can remember.

Congratulations on the first anniversary of Symbol. I usually do not create works inspired by Symbol, but this is the first time I have created a Symbol-inspired work on this auspicious occasion. In the past, I have taken the liberty of creating goddesses from the emblem of nem, and created a story for each of them. At that time, I imagined three goddesses from the three colors and assigned them as shown here.