Concept

Title: Crawl Towards the Light

The piece of work for this time is the one joining together three pieces out of a serial work entitled “Figures of Atom Bomb” onto which I kept on painting my own experiences that will never leave my mind as long as I live ever since I experienced the Atom Bomb in Hiroshima. The pieces on the right and left are those focusing on destruction and portray the intensity at the moment of explosion of the Atomic Bomb and the horror of instantaneous demolition and annihilation of everything, by sharp touches mainly in black and in crimson and yellow colors as well. The piece at the center is one aspiring for peace and portrays the setting sun going down into the Japan Sea off Shonai region in Yamagata prefecture. I chose this scenery because it precisely makes me feel a peaceful view.
As the title of the work this time, inspired by the words of an Atom Bomb survivor, Ms. Setsuko Thurlow, laureate of Nobel Peace Prize, I adopted the phrase “Don’t give up! Crawl towards the light!”
Although I was always hoping to paint a picture like “Guernica” in Hiroshima, I was not able to go there directly to work and I almost gave it up partly because of my old age of 92 years. However, my art circle friends have granted me my wish. “Guernica of Hiroshima” has been completed thanks to the assistance provided by people from various quarters. I would like to convey the horror of nuclear weapons and the prayer for peace through the picture.

— Comment by Ms. Kimura Junko, stand-in author —
Precisely because our master artist experienced the atom bomb at the age of 15 years old and saw the unimaginable inferno, he has been able to continue advocating for the abolition of nuclear arms in a consistent way through oil painting until now. He said “If I were 10 years younger, I would have wished to go to Hiroshima to participate in the Wall Art Project and paint.” and “What a pity! What a disappointment!” I stood in on his behalf because of those words and because I myself wished that, by installing his work in HIROSHIMA ORIZURU TOWER, visitors coming to look at it may rethink what they should do to make a world without wars and without nuclear arms.

Profile

On August 6, 1945, at the age of 15, I met the Atomic Bombing in the neighborhood of Yokokawa, 4 km off the epicenter. I keep on depicting by oil painting the calamities of Bombing, the experience of which shall never leave my mind until I die.
Once I faced the canvas in trying by all means to paint the experience of Atom Bomb but the situation was too cruel for my painting skill to express it. However, I began to work on the serial production of “Figures of Atom Bomb”, inspired through interchanges with nationwide survivors of the Bomb. “Never give up, crawl toward light!” With such thought in mind, lately I am painting my pieces depicting the shining sun and light, in hope of resurrection from the destruction. From now on also, I wish to keep on painting as long as I live.