I decided to create a series of paintings that would form a rainbow spectrum when the ten pieces were put together, each piece representing a single colour of a rainbow in reverse.
To produce the blue and red rainbow colours, which could be described as vibrations of light, I first blackened the canvas with Indian ink. Then I superimposed thin layers of natural mineral pigments, like a ritual, one after the other. A faint light emerged as I went along, like a glow in the dark.
The fact that the way tea is prepared, and the way it is made, gradually becomes ritualized, may be due to the anxiety of being alive (Sen no Rikyu: Mugon no zen-ei, by Genpei Akasegawa)."
Perhaps through the repetition of certain acts, in other words by establishing rituals, man draws strength from trying to tame the anxiety of death and summon the mysterious other.