Contemporary Japanese sculpture often focuses on themes far more esoteric than political and social dialogue, appropriation and other similar issues which are regularly addressed by contemporary artists in the West. One such theme is the sense of place. Rarely however, is this sense of place expressed simply by depicting figurative aspects of the landscape. Complemented by the traditionally eastern spiritual link with nature, such work is more likely to represent what the critic Tadayasu Sakai has called the 'heart's landscape'; a deep feeling of affinity with the natural or man-made environment, which is conveyed through subtle symbolism. Shigeo Toya's dramatic sculpture characterises this trend. Born in 1947, Toya graduated from the Aichi Prefecture University of Fine Arts, completing postgraduate studies in the Sculpture Department in 1975. Artists of his generation immediately succeeded the school of Mono-ha (meaning 'things' or 'material objects'), who rejected the prevailing conventions of expressionism in painting and sculpture, in favour of an unconditional acceptance of the world as it is. The Mono-ha insisted that 'things exist as they are' and that they should be thus represented. In turn, Toya rejected the strict literalism of his predecessors to create a unique world in which he subtly depicts his own heart's landscape. Toya's rendering of the landscape and his personal links to it, is however one which, in both technique and form, refers to the inherent violence of the natural world, in addition to its strength and resilience. Takeshi Kanazawa, Assistant Director of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, describes the artist's working process thus: '...he works from outside to inside. His action is not "construction". It can perhaps be appropriately called "excavation". His work in wood goes beyond chiselling the surface - he cuts into the material with a chainsaw creating ragged surfaces.' Kanazawa goes on to say that: 'The outlook of his pieces is quite different from decorative sculpture... He does not work with a planned final image as traditional artists do in sculpture. Having given up setting any kind of goal as to what he will create, he needs to work on material that he can develop in the process. Wood, which contains air and water, is therefore his natural choice. His work is a searching process for the invisible through dialogue with wood.' Well versed in the long tradition of Japanese wood carving, Toya has learned much from its technique of bringing out the life of the material by leaving the marks of the carving in evidence. Indeed, it is through the clarity of his technique that the beauty of the material, intensity of the artist's feeling and spirit of these sculptures is made manifest. The pieces which comprise 'Woods III' are arranged in a grid-like form and recreate the atmosphere of a forest, into which the individual is subsumed. This expressionistic rendering of the landscape symbolises the inherent violence and harsh physicality of the natural world.