10,000 feet above sea – five months straight – four years in a row. For 600 days Yu Yamauchi lived in a hut near the summit of Mt. Fuji, getting up while it was still dark to photograph the sunrise every day, from the same location. The resulting series, titled “DAWN,” is a stunning look at the colorful, sometimes abstract view of Earth waking up.

This space, “above the clouds,” exists far from the ground where we live our daily lives. It is also a space between the earth and the universe. Being there simply reminds me of the fact that we live on the earth which is a planet within an infinite space of the universe.

What’s perhaps most striking about the series is the variability. Not a single picture looks the same. And yet, each day the sun, rising from the same spot, repeats itself.

I met Yu at Tatzu Nishi’s artist talk last night. “DAWN” is the first major U.S. exhibition for the 35-year old artist. The series is on display at Miyako Yoshinaga gallery in New York through November 21, 2012.