I have an interest that may sound rather old-fashioned for someone my age: I am deeply drawn to Noh theatre.
In Japan, Noh often calls yūgen to mind. The Noh mask is central to that world; it emerges from darkness, while everything beyond the stage seems to sink into black.
Time no longer hurries forward there. It passes slowly through a boundless silence, so ancient that it almost inspires fear.
The ghosts of Noh are never realistic ghosts. They are summoned through masks, sleeves, footsteps, and pauses. This beauty—unspoken and almost calligraphic in its suggestion—is yūgen.
It brings to mind what Jun’ichirō Tanizaki considered in In Praise of Shadows: beauty does not reside only in an object, but is born in the interwoven shadows between things, in what light and darkness leave unsaid. That is also the place I continually try to approach in my work.