The busiest train line in the world does not go anywhere. 

 The Yamanote sen carries more passengers than any other train line in the world, but you can ride it all day and not go anywhere at all.   It goes in a circle.  If you ride for an hour you can get off at the same place you got on.

 The circle is a great old symbol.  It is the most famous symbol in Zen sumi painting.  The circle of life -  everything and nothing at the same time.  It is eternity

 But I did not want to paint eternity - I wanted to paint Tokyo.  Even the freshest gaijin visiting Tokyo quickly discovers that Tokyo is not a city - It is many cities all stuck together.  The Yamanote sen is one of the things holding this mess together.

 In Edo people lived on the rivers and canals.  People do not live on the rivers anymore - They live on the train.

How many million people ride the Yamanote sen every day?  I don’t know.  But it seemed to me no one really took time to look at it.  The Yamanote sen was like a person you have been married to for a long time - you know they are there, but you never really look at them.

This was my challenge, to look at the Yamanote sen with fresh eyes, to see the beauty that was there, and to show that beauty to other people.

Then I realized - this idea was dangerous.  29 stations, all painted in black ink, all the same size.  Wow, this could be very boring.  Nobody likes a boring show.  It was also my challenge, to see a special thing special about each station, to use a different brush, a different color black, a different kind of washi - to make each painting from a different point of view. 

..... in the Riverside Gallery