Peter Pommerer likes to think big. Like, elephant big. His drawings, paintings and installations almost always revolve around depictions of the herbivorous mammal. Actually, there is a rumor floating around the art world that the Stuttgart artist actually believes he is an elephant.

View of Peter Pommerer's installation at Taro Nasu Gallery

Pommerer, 32, is in Tokyo with an exhibition of new work at the Taro Nasu Gallery in Koto Ward. "Dreaming Doodlings" features 12 works on paper and several panels painted directly onto the gallery walls. These are linked by spirals, giving the impression that the art is flowing off the paper and over the frames to cover the walls of the gallery.

Actually, the wall drawings are based on the works on paper, with the spirals' effect approximating a camera lens zooming in and out on the details. In the grand mosaic of colored pencil, ink and paint, one finds stars, planets, fire, mountains and, yes, elephants.

Possibly because they are so colorful, but mostly due to their subject matter, Pommerer's drawings can suggest the work of aboriginal artists. It is a comparison the artist has heard before, but one he shies away from.

"I have seen lots of books about native art in Africa and India," says Pommerer, "but I don't really base my art on these things. I think the stars and planets I draw are more like organic stars, maybe they look more like the inside of our bodies."

One of a new breed of German artists, Pommerer showed in the important 1999 exhibition "German Open." What might characterize this generation is their willingness to experiment with new forms of expression and move beyond the stilted conceptualism sometimes associated with German contemporary art. How else to explain an obsession with elephants?

"With elephants, it's a long history," explains the artist. "I was interested in the character of the elephant and the way they forget nothing, and they have become very important in my life and in my art ."

Pommerer says that when he was young, many German children played with little wooden elephants, but that he personally didn't have one.

"I became an elephant later," says the artist before correcting himself. "I mean I became interested in elephants when I was older." He laughs.

"I mean," he says, "I never actually became an elephant, like they once wrote in a Time Out magazine review."

Pommerer has recently completed a permanent wall mural for CICAP in the Cassina Interdecor showroom in Aoyama and is presently concentrating on a new art book due out this summer.

"Dreaming Doodlings" is a new-look, and therefore difficult to classify, exhibition. It is not exactly "outsider art," but then neither is it simply decorative. The scale is ambitious. Rarely do visiting artists have enough time in Japan, as Pommerer did for developing this installation.

Another interesting aspect of the show is its ephemerality. In a couple of weeks, much of what is on the Taro Nasu walls will be painted over and never seen again. Again the diametric properties of Pommerer's work are suggested, as the art gallery apparently "forgets" the elephants.