"The residency was a pivotal moment in my art practice. I had only begun focusing on landscape painting a few years before my AIRIE residency. That shift was influenced by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, when I witnessed familiar landscapes being destroyed—my father’s family is from one of the affected areas.

For a long time, my work has been rooted in my cultural background. However, my time at AIRIE made me realize how long I have been living in South Florida and how gradually I had come to understand the history of this place. During the residency, I read The Everglades: River of Grass and learned about Marjory Stoneman Douglas, which became another significant influence on my work.

This experience encouraged me to learn more about Florida’s history—how recent its documented settler history is compared to Japan’s long recorded past, while also acknowledging the deep knowledge and stewardship of the Native peoples who lived here for generations without damaging or radically altering the landscape. It also heightened my awareness of how rapidly humans are destroying a natural environment that took thousands of years to form. My time at AIRIE gave me a clear purpose to focus on landscape painting and to explore it more deeply."