In my younger years, I was drawn to the artists of Art Informel — painters like Toshimitsu Imai and Kazuo Shiraga — and to the artists of the Gutai Art Association. What pulled me in was the way impulse and energy appeared on the surface directly, and how compelling that looked.

This painting was made in 2019, during a period when I was still searching. I followed that admiration and let the work finish itself through impulse alone — feeling, as I painted, that something larger and more alive lives inside roughness.