When we look at a painting, we are at the same time being looked at by it. The positions of “seeing” and “being seen” are continuously exchanged. For me, this resembles breathing. Inhaling and exhaling circulate as a single movement, sustaining our connection with the world.

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Drawing on this breath, I find possibility in a state prior to the opposition of “subject” and “object,” where the two remain undifferentiated. Here, the world and I are not yet divided, and experience appears as it is, before reflection or judgment.

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Painting, the viewer, the act of making, space, light, time, memory—none of these takes precedence. They exist in a relationship of mutual influence, enveloping and being enveloped by one another. When we become aware of this relation, a “field of experience” emerges in which subject and object arise without separation. I create paintings that seek to evoke such a field.

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Tomonari Nakayashiki