The Japanese sculptor, Zero Higashida, works in combinations of stone, steel and wood, managing to convey the monumentality of his subject: Hiroshima and the atomic bomb. Sixty-five years ago, his mother lived through the blast, and the tales she told him about the day that changed the world has had a profound and influential affect on his work.

His simple forms, both rough and gestural, suggest the massive and the infinitesimal at the same time. They reflect at once the beauty, elegance and harmony of balance, and the suspension of the atom and its relation to the universe. At the same time they convey the horror of its potential in human hands.

Utilizing steel, stainless steel, stones, and pieces of wood indigenous to Hiroshima, his surfaces ache with ragged edges, and suture-like wounds slice the planes. Favoring a state of precarious equilibrium, he tends to balance his forms on beveled edges and sharp points.

Although haunted by the spector of the atomic bomb, Higashida's art also embodies, according to art critic Gerard Haggerty, the Japanese notion of chiritori: the planet's power to heal and restore itself; as well as iconographic suggestions of important and influential individuals in the arts.