“Shepard called me asking in true humility if I saw the concerns brought up around this mural so he can understand it if it did cross a line,” Choi wrote in an email. “But to be honest, I don’t see the issue. I went deep into the well of subconscious and still didn’t see it. The rays felt more like radio signals to me than the rising sun flag and while the visual trigger may create the illusion of similarity, the piece does not represent that war-torn era of atrocities to me at all.”

Source: Los Angeles Times December 17, 2018 22:46 UTC