Ugetsu, an award-winning print maker who has received a number of prizes at international biennale exhibitions, found a fallen black bamboo in a forest one day. He brought it home and started painting with it. This episode reminds us of “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” dating back to the Heian era, in which an old man finds a little girl in a glowing bamboo in a forest. When she grows up, she is taken by emissaries from the moon. The story is full of implications connecting humans with the space. Coincidentally,  有月 means “the moon exist”. Black shapes and figures emerging from the tip of a natural bamboo as he scratches paper with it connect the consciousness of urban dwellers to forests and the space where all things are in a state of flux. His works mark a departure from Japanese traditional black and white paintings. Traces of spiral movements painted on Japanese traditional  washi and cloth also call up images of some works done  in the name of inframince by Marcel Duchamp.

Kiyoshi Kusumi,       Art Critic,  Former editor-in chief of the art magazine Bijutu Techo

楠見清　　　　美術評論家／元美術手帖編集長