I started this Maris-Method painting in August 2011, on the back of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster on March 11, 2011. It took me 3 years to finish it. It is a requiem and an expression of my hopes for human courage in looking towards the future in the face of adversity. 

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My Mona Lisa holds a white cane as an icon like the one used by the visually impaired to find their way in the darkness. This life size ‘Mona Lisa’ was painted against the backdrop of nuclear power plant No.1, as viewed from Minami-Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture. 

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Mona Lisa, famously left unfinished by Leonard da Vinci, was ‘finished’ by me using the Maris-Method. Inspired by a request from a visually handicapped friend to see ‘once again’ the painting he once saw before. I decided to re-paint the Mona Lisa, the painting which is so iconic that those who developed visual impairment in later life would most likely have seen it before at some point in their lives. 

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I re-painted Mona Lisa just down to her feet as the terrible events of March 11, 2011 took place while I worked on the concept of this work and how my Mona Lisa took shape.

The flood was painted on the blurred background of the original Mona Lisa. My re-painted ‘Mona Lisa’ was also standing at a sandbar as well where the floods were seen on her both right side and left side, which however I just learned when I finished this work. 

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The background of original Mona Lisa had somehow reminded me of the Fukushima nuclear power plant No.1 disaster when I had an idea to work out this project.