On My Work- "the Tree of Life"

For twenty years, I have been slowly developing the theme, "the Tree of Life". Perhaps triggered by the experience of picking various fruits throughout my life, the last installation project that I was in the process of making prior to moving to Japan (around 1987-88) was of endlessly expanding tree with various shapes of fruits. The project was left unfinished, but while in early years in Japan, numerous semi-abstract and surrealistic looking drawings that I have drawn appeared to me to be a 'vision' of the Tree of Life . These along with other experiences have convinced me this being my life time theme, and that my major goal as an artist was to create in a sculptural form a personal version of the Tree of Life. Ever since, I have been developing very slowly, at snail's pace, this theme. The works that I have made in Japan that is shown in the slide show on the top left corner of this blog, are then both work in themselves, but also a piece within the bigger theme. They are also a model as I would like to refine and rework some of these old works in a more permanent form.