When I was in my early twenties, I used to paint depressing pictures, as if I had painted my brain blue or pink! (But who isn’t, right?). At the time, I was more interested in contemporary art than illustration, and I think I wanted to do something different and find a new form of expression. I felt that it wasn’t good enough to just draw things in a normal way. I had no ideas for motifs, composition or colouring techniques, and I was frustrated because I didn’t have the skills to draw out what I wanted to do. I even painted on a wooden panel using an igniting agent and burnt it with a burner (but it was selected for the Ashiya exhibition). In the midst of all this, I enjoyed drawing line drawings with a brush pen and ballpoint pen, a technique similar to etching in printmaking, and they were well-received.

Anyway, I started to understand a little more about what is called commercial illustration, which is illustrations that convey something, maybe after I had my solo exhibition in 2000 and started working part-time to buy a second-hand Mac, scanner and printer, and started to colour digitally instead of analogue. The fact that I had a production process like: come up with an idea, rough drawing, line drawing, digitalising, colouring, and so on… Yes! I think I’ve calmed down and thought about it! I think that’s when I started to think about it. But still, for about five years after that, the touch was still lost and undefined.