Shadow for Arakawa is not just a dark area on a surface. Shadow is a reflection of existing thing, which reveals its hidden character. Ice for Arakawa is not just frozen water. Ice is a sealed sensuality; affection locked in a crystal-clear plane. Arakawa is not interested in “now”. He challenges depictions of “before” and “after”. The remains from building construction refer to the past, distant silhouettes either express grief or manifest hope, the landscape in general is filled with foreboding: anything except “this moment” in current perception of a painting

Thus, Absence is one of the main themes of Arakawa’s painting. Nevertheless, this absence is not just a lack of things but presence of vanishing, the manifestation of missed time. It is exactly this Absence of The Present that produces particular music, tone or audible silence; extremely infectious for the onlooker silence, that takes away the sense of hearing of the onlooker.