Paul Sakai identifies as a cultural nomad, existing between cultural and physical spaces. Born in the United States, they are a yonsei Japanese American raised as part of the international community in Southeast Asia as a Third Culture Kid. Their work is an act of grounding – a practice of connecting their present body to place, people, and cultural histories.

Their project, Roy Kiyo, is an extension of this practice. Works under this project are broadly catalogued as ›figures‹, a term with two meanings:

1. A ›figure‹ as a physical bodily form emergent in a past and present landscape.

2. A ›figure‹ as representative illustration, artefact, and evidence. An evidential materialisation of a lifelong experience: a collaged, juxtapositional patchwork of emotional memory and experience and past and present places folded in on themselves across time.

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»Figure A«

An opening rainstorm

A figure

An offering to past homes: a floating pier, suspended on water – in motion, ever transitory – a gateway between earth and river.

An offering to past people

A closing rainstorm

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»Figure B«

A juxtaposition: a rainstorm, a dam, a temple in the sky.

A meditation on place

A farewell

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Thanks to Nate Wooley for his thoughtful input and caring mentorship. Thanks to Lulu West for her friendship and her unwavering support throughout the collaborative refinement of »Figures«. And finally, deepest thanks to my wife, Katie – to whom this work is wholly dedicated – thank you for being a home while I mourned past homes.