Do you recall when you first knew you were going to be an artist?

Yes. I was 13 years old, in junior high school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. From the very beginning, I wanted to do fine art. Even as a very young child, like two years old, I was always drawing. But really it was in Mrs. Needler’s art class in junior high school when I knew I wanted to be an artist.

Where did you grow up and how did it inspire you?

I was born in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, on August 19th, 1972. Three months later, we went to New York City. I loved growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in Midtown Manhattan—especially with all the movietheaters in that neighborhood. We had about nine movie theaters in a seven- or eight-block radius. I guess it was around that time that my love for old movie theaters began. And I was always going to museums and galleries since I was very little, when I was in kindergarten at PS 59. I was really into drawing fire engines and tanks, and one day, my drawings were included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Children’s Show.

Were there any surprising things that influenced you when you were younger?

Yes. In a record store on Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue, I discovered a band that would change my life: Iron Maiden. When I played Iron Maiden’s Live After Death cassette tape for the first time in 1986, I was introduced to a wider world of poetry, literature, British war history, and movies. More importantly, it gave me my identity. Once I donned the denim jacket with Iron Maiden patches and buttons, even the bullies and tough guys would run away, because metal was still kind scary to a lot of people. And this would also lead me to becoming the heavy metal guitar player that I am today.

What draws you to George Washington as a subject?

As subject matter for me, he is relatively new. But I feel that I’ve been close to him for a long time. I worked as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 10 years. I was often sent to guard the galleries in which portraits of George Washington are hung, and Emanuel Leutze’s huge painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware. Eventually, I started to research Washington and the American Revolution, and I was really amazed. What especially fascinated me was that George Washington was a sickly child, but he learned to become a strong adult by going horseback riding to discipline himself. And when he was a much older man, he would go for long walks—a couple hours long—at night to keep fit. He never panicked, even during battle. So, George Washington has become my role model.

You’re also known for painting the old theaters of 42nd Street. Were you able to experience the old Times Square before it was cleaned up?

One day in the winter of 1994, I was on a bus trip from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, where I was a student. We passed 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. I looked out the tinted window of the bus and noticed an old, crumbling theater. That was when I realized that this was 42nd Street, and I remembered all the old movie theaters that I used to see when I used to walk by with my father when we were going to the fish market on 10th Avenue back in the early 1980s. I still remember it vividly.

And that sparked an obsession?

I started researching the theaters. There’s a book called Lost Broadway Theaters, which is great. When I went back to 42nd Street later, I compared the theaters that I saw with the ones in the book. Only one of the theaters was still open. All the other theaters were closed due to imminent domain from the city and state.

How did that make you feel?

A strange feeling came over me. It suddenly felt as if I had come home—to my real home. It was as if the theaters were saying, “welcome home,” as if I was always part of the old 42nd Street.