The remarkable drawings by the Japanese draughtsman, Hiroyuki Doi, are made using the simplest of materials, a pen and black ink on paper, and the simplest of shapes, the circle. By the patient repetition many thousands of times of this elemental geometric design Doi has created the sophisticated and complex works that we see here.

Each circle is varied in size, thickness of line and spacing to control the balance and density of the overall image. The artist starts at the very centre of the sheet and builds up the composition in a cumulative process. The finished pictures resonate with associations to the familiar, physical world but are nevertheless entirely abstract.

Born 1946 in Nagoya, Japan, Hiroyuki Doi has been working as an artist in Japan for the past thirty years. Since the death of his younger brother 20 years ago he has been working on pieces that express the Zen 'circle of life'.

'Now that we are living in a computerized society, the work of human hands has to be emphasized more. I find relief in drawing; something other than myself allows me to work. Suppose every creature in the world is a circle, how many of them can I draw? That is my  challenge. By drawing circles I feel I am alive in the cosmos.'

Hiroyuki Doi