Naho Ito learned Japanese traditional aesthetics and traditional painting materials, such as handmade paper, mineral pigments, sumi-ink, gold and silver foils and glue. The color materials are called in Japanese Iwa-enogu or Rock painting. Basically Rock painting consists of clay, various minerals, shells of oysters and clams and many other elements that have been used since ancient times. Ito mixes each ingredient with glue with her own fingers. They should be treated very delicately and then pasted to the handmade paper. Moreover, they should be arranged according to seasons. So, one may say that “nature” is only one element of the technique, which Ito enjoys. Naho Ito painting is her language. The artist does not feel the need to draw grand stories. Humans have been living a moment after moment under whatever circumstances. Therefore, she would like to express in her word-paintings the moments that we live through one after another. So, every moment is grand in a way. Ito looks for true words and try to endow them with a delicate sense of direction towards hope, so that people will be able to have a dialogue with each other. And she wants to show the light hidden behind those words. In her refined intellectual paintings, often illusive but always striking, Ito explores the infinite possibilities of human nature and feelings, trying to understand herself, eternity and relations between them. She is aiming to reflect her emotional experience through a time flow while catching a moment in which phenomena arise through time and space, passing from one state to another.