WORKS  ARCHIVE

A feeling drifting gently down, a cloud that catches it softly. Sleep slowly, good night.

A large mushroom, planted boldly where the morning sun rises from behind. A painting of energy welling up from behind you. I painted it in one go, following inspiration -- then, after a while, something felt off, so I added more. That added layer was what finally made the piece whole.

The world I saw in Barcelona. Look up, and our world is always pouring over with color and light. Go on, look up.

In the drowsy hour, you return inward, you return home. While doing yoga at dusk, gazing at a white canvas, I saw mushrooms floating back up into the sky like the balloons of Cappadocia. Each mushroom is a soul. We die every day and are reborn every day. Uchi means both "inside" and "home" -- I put both returns into this piece: the relief of coming back to a HOME full of peace, and the return to one's own inner source.

In my forest, the trees grow thick, prisms of light stream in, flowers bloom in profusion, and a spring trembles as it celebrates life. My forest, forever.

Painted after someone suggested a Japanese-pattern design might be interesting. A rare piece for me -- one that features a woman. Made as a small experiment, on a very small scale.

Ah, I see. More than I thought, more than I imagined — the world was love, in every direction.

Mushrooms can fly through the sky, can't they? And you -- couldn't you be freer too? On the way back from seeing work by the wood sculptor Hideki Iinuma, looking at the neat, orderly streets, I thought how interesting it would be if there were a playful town where sculptures turned up here and there. I painted this when I got home. A mushroom doesn't have to grow from a tree; it can fly through space, turn upside down, be larger than an aeroplane. I painted it to propose that kind of lightness.

The place where your wish comes true feels, somehow, like home.

Deep in the mysterious forest, there it is — a merry-go-round of cosmic mushrooms. Shall we dance together?

Tomorrow comes equally to everyone. A world in autumn colors, where the mushrooms watch the sunset at the end of their day. I usually paint in bright colors, but for this one I deliberately chose the colors of autumn. Someone who works hard every day and is a little tired, watching the sunset and feeling a soft, slowly spreading hope for tomorrow -- I painted that feeling into the world of the mushrooms.

Painted because the autumn view of Mt. Fuji from my house was simply too beautiful. The house is actually a red mushroom.

Made during a fresco painting class, where I painted a small fresco version of "Coming Home." While working, I found myself imagining Renaissance painters working just like this -- it was pure joy.

That is exactly what we were born for.

A love letter from within, melting gently away.

Visiting Toyokawa Inari in Akasaka, I felt a warm welcome from the gods -- a mood of pure celebration. "You made it! Well done!" Never forget there are beings cheering unconditionally for your adventure.

No excuses — just create the world you want to paint! Painted with that feeling in mind.

Growing quietly, beautifully, and surely within an infinite cosmos. That is you.

Beyond the familiar sky, I carried that mushroom out over a sea of clouds seen from an airplane window — past my own limits, toward an "Another Sky" no one has ever seen.

A setting sun breaking all the way through above the clouds. The praise meant for you reaches you, at any hour, always.

Painted in gold, white and blue, evoking the feel of Kabuki and ukiyo-e. Waves, Mount Fuji, and a mushroom flying through it all. A distinctly Japanese scene with a mushroom soaring through it -- that mushroom is me, breaking free from this world. I thought a tall, narrow shape like a hanging scroll would be fun, so that's the form it took.

The Black Sea, seen from the window of a plane flying from Istanbul to Prague. In the moment the blue sky and that blue overlapped, my heart became one with the anticipation of the adventure about to begin. Place a mushroom there -- somewhere it has no business being -- and a mere landscape becomes my own story. It is also a scene of everyone heading toward an adventure of their own.

A world showered with the buoyant energy of cherry-blossom season, with a bit of a stretch — turned into mushroom petals.

Ka・Na・Me — eight words for what matters most within me: Life, Will, Wind, Strength, Harmony, Abundance, Wisdom, Void. An experiment in translating the invisible inside into visual art.

Ka・Na・Me — eight words for what matters most within me: Life, Will, Wind, Strength, Harmony, Abundance, Wisdom, Void. An experiment in translating the invisible inside into visual art.

Ka・Na・Me — eight words for what matters most within me: Life, Will, Wind, Strength, Harmony, Abundance, Wisdom, Void. An experiment in translating the invisible inside into visual art.

Ka・Na・Me — eight words for what matters most within me: Life, Will, Wind, Strength, Harmony, Abundance, Wisdom, Void. An experiment in translating the invisible inside into visual art.

Ka・Na・Me — eight words for what matters most within me: Life, Will, Wind, Strength, Harmony, Abundance, Wisdom, Void. An experiment in translating the invisible inside into visual art.

Ka・Na・Me — eight words for what matters most within me: Life, Will, Wind, Strength, Harmony, Abundance, Wisdom, Void. An experiment in translating the invisible inside into visual art.

Ka・Na・Me — eight words for what matters most within me: Life, Will, Wind, Strength, Harmony, Abundance, Wisdom, Void. An experiment in translating the invisible inside into visual art.

This world, which you may read any way you like and choose any way you like -- how will you live it?

Original-size piece only (small, green/white).

A digital print of the work that could be called my origin point -- the original was shown at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris -- offered here as a tower of power.

A mandala, to me, represents the whole — the universe itself. I filled a globe-like sphere with mushrooms, each holding a different emotion. Sadness, fear — none of it needs to be rejected. All of it is you. Every emotion is sacred and beautiful.

Inspired by Kukai and the Taizokai Mandala, I redrew the energies that compose this world through the light, playful language of mushrooms. Each of us is a sacred being, part of one greater whole.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

One of the 40 surrounding figures of Cosmic Mushroom Mandala II. A deity from the Womb Realm Mandala (Taizōkai), reimagined through the Cosmic Mushroom motif as a way of being within oneself.

The Phantom Forest series explores the forest as a sacred boundary between the natural world and humanity, and gives form to the invisible presences felt when resonating with this sacred space.

The second in the series, painted while a song by the artist MARINO played on in my head, chasing after its beautiful colors.

Beauty is fleeting, alluring, like a lingering scent. The third in the series, painting that hazy, lovely world.

I too carry a burning passion. Even chaos amid the clamor cannot shake me. I remain there, quietly.

A parent and child, close together? Two souls, close together? The fifth in the series, painting souls huddled close within the forest, as mushrooms.

Leave them be, just as they are. And you -- be just as you are. Among all the mushrooms of the Forest of Fantasy, this one is me. Watching a certain stage performance, I noticed the places where my relationships with others had become tangled. Each of us is allowed to exist exactly as we are. Diversity is not everything harmonising neatly; it is existing while still mixed together. Dissolving a boundary does not mean merging into one. When I could see it that way, I was finally able to forgive myself a little.

Your confusion, your anxiety — all of it, too, lives within beauty.

Seeking the Primal Blue — Lefkada, Greece. To feel infinity is to become color itself.

Under the Mediterranean blue sky of Lefkada, I paused before a smile unbound, free, and fully alive in the moment.

The bond between Greece and Japan, tied by Lafcadio Hearn, carries an ancient spirit that is at once nostalgic and new. May this place, where Greece and Japan meet, be filled with abundance and happiness.

Painted at the request of someone on Yoron Island, as original artwork for the cover of a Kindle book. The central area is deliberately kept simple so that text would sit well when overlaid. Footprints in the sand express that person's connection to their ancestors and their gaze toward the future -- footprints leading toward the sea represent moving into the future, with them imagined as standing at the place where past and future walk together.

Turkey, 2026. The red of the flag -- but what I found was not the red of passion. Everywhere I went tea was poured, and people told me "we love you": a red of kinship that seeps in slowly. As soon as I got home, I could not not paint it. The innocent smiles of children, citizens who love Japanese culture -- a welcoming love that wells up from deep inside.

Everything passes through a single point, and is made clear.

Magenta is the color of love. Simply enjoying a gentle gradation of love's color alongside yellow.

There is no night that does not end in dawn. If you feel you're in darkness right now, please, never give up.

Your femininity comes into bloom. Slowly, unhurriedly, freely — your flower opens.

Drops of joy are born throughout the body, a rising resonance begins, and the soul starts to dance.

I will become hope! Painted on the birthday in 2021 when I made that decision.

Never forget that sadness, too, is one of your precious, beautiful emotions. May your sadness be healed, and become a drop that feeds your future.

Painted exactly as it came to me in a moment of inspiration.

Joy, delight -- feelings that rise up within you, and savoring them matters. This oil painting is about that act of savoring.

A painting of sea and sky, made to work hung either way up or down -- a way of loosening the grip of "it has to be this way." A kind of device for flipping your own world and seeing it anew.

A feeling of green overflowing. Abundance is something that spreads freely, the way a plant does. Expressed very simply, with green and gold leaves.

A thousand — infinite — hands are cheering you on, delivering love to you, wrapping you in it.

You can break through where you stand right now. You already have the strength to break through. Break through — make up your mind.

A world of gold and pale violet trickles slowly down. A world glimpsed in a half-sleep.

The feeling of rising energy catching fire, one spark at a time. Painted with the image of a seed of passion slowly growing. Rendered in glossy oil.

A fairy-tale flower field with about four mushrooms, each one about to take flight -- now is the time. I'm told the collector who bought it hung it in their entryway.

A new joy is born from within you. Your will and your awareness roar inside you, taking shape. A disordered light, suspended between physical space and the space of information.

Painted during a stretch of intricate, detail-heavy works like Mount Fuji and Shall We Dance?, when I found myself craving more freedom -- an abstract piece in blue. Made while juggling a day job, right as I was starting to want to move more freely.

A study made before the larger version of this piece. Born from the shock of Florence -- an aesthetic where the old and the new coexist, and a weight to painting that overwhelmed me. At the Uffizi, a raw, unflinching work by a painter who had committed a crime (a Medusa) was placed as the final highlight of the collection. I was stunned by that depth of spirit -- not hiding the work of someone who had killed, but exhibiting it because it was, simply, a great painting. Seeing it in person was visceral and unsettling. This is the first piece where I gave shape to that unresolved feeling.

Even if you are crushed by despair, you will always find the light of hope. The radiance of life is eternal, and you are that radiance itself. In November 2023 I exhibited in Florence for the second time, travelled home via Dubai, and then sank -- unable to make sense of everything I had taken on. Caught up in comparison and competition, I could not make decisions that felt like my own; all I could do was keep my hands moving. "What I want to create is the work, and the place where people gather around it." I painted this while I was still dissolving and reforming inside the chrysalis. One of the culminating pieces of my first solo exhibition.

Here, there is nothing but pure happiness. The blessing that overflowed from the cup of my heart spread gently, like bubbles drifting into the air.

After visiting Sanjusangen-do and feeling what I felt there, I wondered how to express the thousand-armed Kannon. What I found myself painting was flowers blooming in profusion.

Painted with the image of a sky full of stars as seen from Iida. Commissioned by a lodging facility in Iida, Nagano, one of two works permanently displayed in a guest room.

Painted with the image of the mountains seen from Iida. Commissioned by a lodging facility in Iida, Nagano, one of two works permanently displayed in a guest room.

The moment of beginning starts, quite literally, like cell division — from coincidence and miracle. I painted a spiral, bursting open with elation. Possibility never stays in one direction.

A single beam of white light piercing from earth to sky. I added a tree, growing straight up without hesitation. Golden light falls like a rain of joy and blessing. Amid countless competing wills, it is the thing at your deepest core that guides you. That is will.

Every event, every experience, everything you feel -- all of it is abundance itself. Visualized, that abundance overflowing from every direction becomes a dreamlike world, like an undersea palace. What do you see? Vermilion and orange -- like a palace beneath the sea, or a coral reef, bubbles of color pour in from every side. Vermilion for blessing and protection, orange for warmth. The "motion" that pairs with the "stillness" of the blue panel.

The theme and symbol work of this solo exhibition. A quantum world where many dimensions tangle together and energies twist and overlap. I painted the moment that chain passes its critical point and bursts out powerfully, like flowers coming into full bloom. Destiny is made in every instant. Flowery -- expressing who you are as naturally as a flower opening, and enriching your life by it. Place -- an environment where you can safely reveal what you truly feel, and make the future you want real.

2026, to Turkey, and then to Singapore. Each person's inner peace eventually becomes a great ripple, bringing peace and harmony to the world. The story of "RAINVOLUTION," where Rainbow and Revolution echo together.

An artist is a revolutionary of concepts. Art transcends language, becoming a bridge and a doorway.

When I had stripped the old fusuma paper in the garden and finished laying down the base coat, the shadows of akebi leaves fell across the pure white ground. Taking that once-in-a-lifetime shadow as my cue, I painted kumquats and akebi on the fusuma of my family home -- a story of "prosperity" and "talent coming into bloom," offered as a wholesome prayer in my family's own way.

Someone had asked me to paint something blue, so I tried an abstract piece exploring blue and green together. I'd heard a friend's company was opening an auberge (a place for fine food and lodging) in Iida, Nagano, and painted with colors that might suit that space.

Someone had asked me to paint something blue, so I tried an abstract piece exploring blue and green together. I'd heard a friend's company was opening an auberge (a place for fine food and lodging) in Iida, Nagano, and painted with colors that might suit that space.

Someone had asked me to paint something blue, so I tried an abstract piece exploring blue and green together. I'd heard a friend's company was opening an auberge (a place for fine food and lodging) in Iida, Nagano, and painted with colors that might suit that space.

Someone had asked me to paint something blue, so I tried an abstract piece exploring blue and green together. I'd heard a friend's company was opening an auberge (a place for fine food and lodging) in Iida, Nagano, and painted with colors that might suit that space.

A heart, two birds, an egg — everything circulates, everything is born, within a cycle that continues forever.

A flower is born from a world where countless dimensions intersect. You are born; passion is born. Joy and sorrow, being moved, anger, relief, heartbreak -- all of it lives within the will of the cosmos.

Countless dimensions intersect; the world keeps being born entangled, contradiction and order dissolving into one another.

Many moons rise, and many moons set. Everything circles back around.

The passion, hope, and pain of being alive. The preciousness of every emotion born from you. A living, moving energy surges within you, and then is transformed.

The Mobius ring, a symbol of infinity -- nurturing, moistening, bearing fruit, encompassing the whole world.

Like the beautiful notes spun from piano keys, may every one of your wishes come true.

Just as our bodies are woven through with blood vessels and nerves, all energy overflows and shines with light within the vast cosmos.

Close your eyes, and there are billions upon billions of stars. You are a resident there, and the galaxy is you, yourself.

The sea shows countless expressions depending on time and place. Just how vast and captivating can the color blue be?

Destiny arrives the moment a dimension bends.

Time stretches, shrinks, bends — entirely free. An eternal instant, and eternity within an instant.

LOVE JOY EMOTION Yes Feeeeeeel Just do it!

A one-of-a-kind piece painted for each individual client who commissioned it, using sketch or mushroom motifs.

Painted for one particular person. "Let that bursting wish take flight. And with the intention of fulfilling it yourself, try, right now, from right here, what you can do. That is where everything begins."

Painted for one particular person. "Cherish, attend to, and adore the one and only you. Loving your dearest self is what makes that world grow wide. The key to that world lies within yourself."

Painted for two people, as a pair. "There is love that melts two into one, love that keeps expanding, love that connects and changes. That is exactly why love means continuing to ask the question."

Painted for one particular person. "The sky holds everything and leads it toward emptiness -- a presence in itself. Beyond process, living as that presence. In time, it becomes conviction."

Painted for one particular person. "Pure joy is what heals people. The world where you rejoice, the world you want to create -- it is already there."

Painted for one particular person. "Interesting, or not interesting. When choosing your life by this measure alone, life becomes far more delightful. You already hold that measure."

Painted for one particular person. "Dance, as joy moves you. Dance, as inspiration strikes. Joy gives birth to joy, and the world is wrapped in something soft and graceful -- every time your heart and body dance."

Painted for one particular person. "I create. I bring it into being. Quietly, gracefully, trusting myself, one thing at a time. So it will be alright."

A designer who has crafted stage costumes for about twenty years made this one-piece dress for me. Across the fabric, I painted blue flowers as if embracing a bouquet. Looking into the flare of the skirt, it appears as though I am holding the flowers in my arms. To wear it is to cherish and hold myself.

One inspiration was being told, "Mayumi's paintings feel as though they leap up and off the canvas." I painted these sneakers so that wherever you walk, it feels like walking through a flower field — the idea of always living alongside art, carrying my paintings with you wherever you go. It was one of several pairs of shoes and hats I hand-painted as gifts for supporters of my 2025 crowdfunding campaign, and it has also been shown in a solo exhibition.

Painted after being inspired by the emerald-green beauty of the sea on Yoron Island, Kagoshima, visited as part of a project to gather colors from around the world.

A work gifted to a whitening salon in Ebisu. Since the salon is themed around Bali, I was asked to paint something evoking Bali. After hearing what kind of image they wanted, I incorporated the salon's name into the piece and presented it as a gift. It expresses a relaxed atmosphere.

The image of a sexy woman running her hand through her hair came to me, and I painted it. The woman's silhouette itself is shaped to resemble a mushroom. The owner of an independently run café loved it and purchased it.

Commissioned by someone who had just gone independent to start a jewelry company, wanting a piece for their office. Painted with the image of the company's future prosperity and creativity spreading out and onward, like a dragon, for years to come.

The starting point was seeing a large rainbow from my room one morning on the way to a shrine — a first for me. It came at a time when I was truly feeling abundance, and good fortune continued afterward as well. Having been advised that sharing joy with others brings joy to everyone, I painted this piece wanting to share a little of that rising, fortunate energy.

A piece made using the fluid art technique. As I focused my attention and built this world, it began to feel like a portrait of myself. Someone who loved the piece received it as a gift.

Created with the idea of holding an exhibition where paintings are displayed on a lawn. I thought about what kind of spring imagery would suit a lawn setting, and used pop colors throughout so that a sense of abundance would come through even in the spaces between the three small pieces.

An oil painting based entirely in blue, rendered like gently swaying waves. Painted with a palette knife, enjoying the texture of the paint itself and the way the blues blended together. This early piece let me feel the sheer joy of painting, and reminded me how much I love the color blue.

People who connect with me grow together — learning and feeling as they go — putting down firm roots and blossoming into flowers of every color. From there, birds and butterflies carry their seeds and pollen to other lands, which in turn become flower fields of their own, until, before you know it, the whole earth is filled with flowers. This piece expresses, through painting rather than words, that process of growth and the vision for the future I hold under my brand name "aloneplusl."

Painted with the image of the owner's two sons, each full of individual character. Their impressions are expressed through the paired figures of the wind god and thunder god, Fūjin and Raijin.

A watercolor built around a cute tin of sardines I bought in Greece, painting a small fantasy unfolding at the water's edge.

Inspired by the fusuma and folding-screen paintings at Kyoto's Entoku-in temple, and drawn to the charm of bamboo shoots, I painted this on the sliding doors of my own home. Partly inspired, too, by thinking about Tokugawa's roots as a farmer. I added my own touch by letting a Cosmic Mushroom peek out from within it.

A message from someone moved me to tears: "My mother is unwell, and she may not see another Mother's Day next year. Your paintings make her feel better just from looking at them -- I wish I could give her one for Mother's Day." It brought back Barcelona's Sant Pau Hospital, exhibited there in 2022 (designed by architect Domenech i Montaner on the belief that "art has the power to heal"), and it brought back someone who kept looking at my Inspiration Art pieces right up until the end of their life. It overlapped with a question I had jotted down the day before, from a symposium theme in Turkey -- "what can the power of art do for the world?" -- and I felt a fierce urge to paint. Rather than a carnation, I wanted to paint a "flower of life," and for the first time I began the underlayer with my fingers. I tried to express the embrace of a woman's whole life as a mother -- sour and sweet, bitter and joyful, all of it held at once. Utada Hikaru's "Anata" was playing in my head the whole time I painted. My own mother has already passed away, and I can no longer tell her directly, so I painted this to carry a "thank you" and an "I love you" through the painting, to mothers everywhere.

A series inspired by whimsical, fictional stories about antiques that the owner of the antique shop "Ibis" shared with me.

A series inspired by whimsical, fictional stories about antiques that the owner of the antique shop "Ibis" shared with me.

A series inspired by whimsical, fictional stories about antiques that the owner of the antique shop "Ibis" shared with me.

A series inspired by whimsical, fictional stories about antiques that the owner of the antique shop "Ibis" shared with me.

A series inspired by whimsical, fictional stories about antiques that the owner of the antique shop "Ibis" shared with me.

A series inspired by whimsical, fictional stories about antiques that the owner of the antique shop "Ibis" shared with me.

A series inspired by whimsical, fictional stories about antiques that the owner of the antique shop "Ibis" shared with me.

A series inspired by whimsical, fictional stories about antiques that the owner of the antique shop "Ibis" shared with me.

The original three-dimensional piece where the words and world of "Cosmic Mushroom" were born. Less a sketch for later paintings than the true starting point of that entire body of work. It connects, too, to the story behind "My Forest."

When one person meets another, a resonance is born between them. Encounter and connection that begin from harmony within yourself. The way two people find their shared rhythm, like partners in a dance. A soft harmony that arises between people sharing the same space -- not something any single person creates, but something noticed, quietly, within the relationship itself. A flower, too, radiates its own light while it exists within the cosmos, influencing and influenced by all around it. That was the image I painted with. Pink came to me first, and the world slowly shifted from something abstract into a flower. That very process of change is itself a harmony you cannot see.

For me, 智 means wisdom. Wisdom, as I understand it, is a generous and calm kind of knowing — the ability to see things from above and to handle them with elegance as we live our lives. Never from emotion, but quietly and evenly: I believe it is what a human being needs in order to weave love. The right hand of a bodhisattva is said to represent wisdom — the hand that removes people's fears and guides them firmly toward the path they are meant to walk. And this work, which will hang in the Soshiji-an its owner is opening, also expresses the owner's own heart: the wish to become a pillar of light, a presence that illuminates everything around it. I painted it with the image of that warm, calm and clear-sighted energy pouring gently down upon a place where people gather.

For my first solo exhibition in 2024, I arranged the ten bodhisattvas of the Womb Realm mandala (ART-100 through ART-109) around the central Cosmic Mushroom Mandala 2 (ART-036), together with roughly thirty more small mushroom pieces, so that together they formed one complete mandala. Each of those individual pieces has since traveled off to its own separate owner, so this whole form can never be recreated again. It was a phantom project piece, suggesting that each of us is a gathering of gods, and yet together we are one.