The circle is not round begins with a simple observation: the shapes we call perfect rarely are. A cherry tree blooms lopsided. A hot spring pool follows the contour of the rock, not the compass. A child’s snorkel mask makes a circle of the face, but the ocean behind her is anything but contained.
This project gathers images from Japan, the United States, Italy, and other places where I have lived or traveled. It is not organized by geography but by a recurring visual and conceptual thread — the tension between forms that suggest completeness and the reality that nothing ever quite closes.
I am interested in how nature and human construction echo each other without imitating. A museum displays an olive tree growing from a cube of earth — geometry imposed on something that will always resist it. A mountain landscape painting hangs on a demolished wall, offering a view that the building itself no longer can. A curved tree trunk breaks the rhythm of a straight forest.
The work is shot on film, mostly in color, and unfolds slowly. It resists narrative in favor of accumulation — each image adds a variation on the theme rather than advancing a story. The circle is not round, and perhaps that is precisely what makes it beautiful.
Artist Statement
I am drawn to the tension between geometry and the organic. The circle appears everywhere in nature and culture, yet it is never mathematically perfect. This imperfection is what I find beautiful -- the gap between the idea and the thing itself.
