Japanese artist Satoshi Ohno may require a translator to converse in English, but he's speaking Hawai'i's language. His upcoming exhibition, "Prism Violet," opening this fall at The Contemporary Museum, was inspired by an instance in which he observed lizards eating bugs drawn to light — an obsessive scene familiar to island residents.

Ohno, born in 1980, is young but already playing in the big leagues: Tokyo's Tomio Koyama Gallery, which represents top-tier artists including Yoshitomo Nara and Paul McCarthy, showcased Ohno at this year's Armory show in New York.

"Prism Violet" will create a discrete gallery environment that contains two types of artwork: Monumental mixed-media drawings and a large-scale sculptural installation, symbolic of Hawai'i's volcanoes, which incorporates natural materials such as black sand.

In town to prepare for the show, Ohno spoke with The Advertiser through a translator.

Q. What is the concept behind your upcoming show, "Prism Violet"?

A. I was first thinking about bugs being attracted to light. And then I connected that with the significance of light to human beings, whether that attraction is instinctual or based on things that we learn through our culture or religion. ... I started thinking about the ways people ... place value on light — you know, like a diamond is a prism ... and how, when you really think about it, our attractions to those light sources aren't always so easy to explain. For example, diamonds are very valued, most people will say because they're pretty; but that really doesn't form a complete answer to the question in my mind. So I wanted to explore this further.

Q. Your work has been characterized as part fictive, part autobiographical. How does it relate to your personal life?

A. Much of the inspiration for my artwork starts with things that I feel desire for — for example, beauty. From there, I try to observe things in my life that are not only things that I find interesting, but that I see the general public as being interested in. ... I find particular interest in things that are not well explained, attractions that one wouldn't be able to verbalize so simply.

Q. Nature figures prominently in your work; what's behind your interest in nature as a subject?

A. After living in Tokyo for seven years, I noticed, on rare occasions that I returned to a natural setting (walking in the forest, for example), I felt as if I were melting into nature, and that my footing on the ground gave me a sensation ... linked into an inner feeling that I did not experience in the city. This experience was further enhanced upon my return trips to Tokyo, when I realized that my footing on concrete was absolutely devoid of those feelings that I had in nature.

Q. And what sort of feeling was that?

A. It was a new sensation, as if I realized a human instinct within me that I hadn't realized that I possessed.

Q. Your brushwork, especially in your depictions of the natural world, seems to reference elements of traditional Asian art. Is this quality intentional?

A. Although the traditional Asian style of my brushwork is not intentional, and I also believe that I'm more oriented toward Western art, I do see your point. I can see in my work that, for example, when I depict two trees, the distance that I give between the two trees, I believe, is more of an Asian style, rather than a Western style.

Q. Which artists do you admire most, and why?

A. I don't have a favorite artist; but two artists that I like very much are Edvard Munch and Olafur Eliasson. ... Both create artwork having a lot to do with light, Munch sometimes using the moon as a motif and Eliasson working with light itself. One of Eliasson's installations that I was particularly inspired by, exhibited at the Tate (in London), used a light source that to any observer would be obviously artificial; yet I was inspired because I felt that obviously artificial light gave me the sensation as though I were in nature.

Q. How do you think your work relates to what's happening in contemporary Japanese art?

A. The big names of Japanese contemporary art at the moment — such as (Yoshitomo) Nara, (Takashi) Murakami and (Hiroshi) Sugimoto — I think have directly applied Japanese culture to contemporary art, whereas I view myself and the contemporary Japanese artists of my generation as being artists who are expressing themselves more than focusing on, or being related to, what is typically thought of as Japanese culture.

Q. You said earlier that you're more oriented toward Western art. How do you feel that your work relates to it?

A. The reason why I would comparatively think of myself as being more inspired by, or my tendency being more toward, western art, is that when I create work ... as an homage to artists that I respect or admire, those artists are usually Western artists; or if they are Asian artists, I feel that those artists also have a Western style.

Q. How would you define a "western style"?

A. I see that western art values the concept behind an artist's work, whereas Japanese art has traditionally valued an artist's skill level or the mastery of his medium.

Marie Carvalho is a freelance writer who covers the arts.