About the artwork

Although “the snake” has been despised as a tempter by the Christian world, in Japan and throughout the East it has been considered a sacred being, endowed with a special viitality that is perceived in its growth through the repeated shedding of its skn and whose coiled shape is suggestive of a spiral of death and rebirth. It is out of this understanding that the concept of this sculpture and its form originate. I have long used steel for my sculptures. The material, steel, was extracted from nature only after man was able to freely manipulate fire at high temperatures. It can be said that our civilization is mediated by “fire”.My image is linked together and develops from “the snake” and “fire”. “fire”→“flame”→“snake”→“spiral”→“geometry”→“nature”→“human history”→“flame of civilization”→“iron”→“iron sculpture”→“the spiral basilisk”. The sacred “fire” has presided over things, good and bad, that transcend human understanding. Light the fire, and the form protecting it is seen to be The Spiral Basilisk.