The Japanese sculptor Zero Higashida, who works in combinations of stone, steel and wood, manages to convey the monumentality of his subject: Hiroshima and the atomic bomb. Fifty years ago, his mother lived through the blast. Recollecting the tales she told him about the day that changed the world sends him to re-visit ground zero.

His simple forms, both rough and gestural, suggest the massive and the infintessimal at the same time. They reflect at once the beauty, elegance and harmony of balance and suspension of the atom and its relation to the universe while at the same time convey the horror of its potential in human hands. His materials, stones and pieces of wood indigenous to Hiroshima, are often bound and constricted with welded steel bands; 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 the Japanese notion of chiritori: the planet's power to heal and restore itself.