NEW YORK: At the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York, a painting by Japanese artist Naoto Nakagawa offers a silent tribute to those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The painting, titled Stars of the Forest: Elegy for 9/11, encapsulates the thoughts of the 77-year-old painter, who personally experienced the attacks during his over 50 years of living in New York.

The artwork was created in three and a half months from early September 2001, or just before the attacks, at a studio only 10 minutes’ walk away from the World Trade Center, the site of the attacks.

Nakagawa originally planned to paint the magical view of star-shaped moss he had seen in New York. But seeing first-hand the horrors of the terror attacks prompted him to make the artwork a tribute to the lives lost.

He drew each moss to seem as if it was shining, representing the shine of life. He arranged the moss to form a cross, and used red, white and blue, the colors of the US national flag.

“My prayers are in the piece,” Nakagawa said.

Nakagawa sought to donate the piece to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, built at ground zero of the attacks, before it opened in 2014. He was unable to donate it, however, and eventually sold it on the condition that the work is ultimately donated to the museum.

The piece was finally donated in 2019, and it has been on display since May this year.

With Saturday marking 20 years since the terror attacks, Nakagawa hopes that such horrors will never occur again.

“As conflicts continue around the world, we all must ask ourselves the causes behind them,” he said.

JIJI Press