いつも私に大きい方を

This is a painting of countless ants swarming over the palm of a hand. Having grown up in the city, I find ants the creatures closest to me, and the ones I meet most often. When I sit on a park bench, they climb up without a second thought, as if they believed my body and the bench were one continuous surface. It reassures me, as though I were freed from social meaning and returned to being just another bump in the landscape. The “palm” is a motif I have painted repeatedly in recent years, chosen as an image of a dialogue with something precious that does not share our language.
The subtitle text in this painting was sampled from the 1996 film Matilda.