The drama of life mostly begins only when the first leaves fall from the tree of youth…”
--Henryk Sienkiewicz

“Perhaps it’s the war. As a little girl I used to make dreams of all sorts, but none of them ever came true…” says Yayoi Kusama. Seventy-five years old, Kusama picked up the dreams as a girl she left behind in youth. If she could relive her life and uncover the theater of life, she would imagine the 100 faces to rewrite all that she has missed and make up the loss of happiness she suffered in her youth. She would hope that the fallen leaves could nurture the seeds of youth so that they grow into beauty in time.

KIM Tae Ho. Youth stays on his colorful paintings, thick and solid, piled up on the flat surface and hollowed out, and eventually the work becomes a multi-layered space like a beautiful piece of relief. When he left us all of the sudden, at the age of 75, the fallen leaves of youth were already collected on his beautiful abstract pathway, turning into lingering bird chirping and floral fragrance of the spring.

AMANO Yoshitaka. In the beginning of the chaos in the universe. In the young man where youth forever stays. The ordinary hero of three-dimensional space, Amano mesmerized by the fantastic magical world, the captivating figures and images he created invite us to fall absorbed into his magical, mesmerizing yet hopeful space, that we forget to grow old…

MIYAKE Shintaro. People, animals, or plants, they all have familiar triangular faces, small and round long ears, happy smiles, noodle-like arms and legs, and enormous mouth and teeth. The adorable, slightly embarrassed, naughty yet naive and fascinating complexions and body languages of theirs have incredible intimacy, as if the artist is standing right before us, making all the lively, wild and funny gestures. All the various characters cross over Miyake’s colors, one innocent and adorable smile after another. They are like highly explosive bombs of beauty, blowing any casual passing mind into captivated dreams.

CHOE U-Ram. Mysterious, fantastic mechanic mobile art. With a simulation of life’s breath, machines evolve into organism; each work is a future creature coming into the present time, all the way from the ancient time. They come in unbelievable forms, yet with bizarre familiarity, that they are called “Anima Machine”, with which Choe begins a new stage of mechanic mobile aesthetics.

Choe’s artworks slowly move, dimly glow; they even whispers. Their existence in space is beautiful, mysterious, romantic, and full of life. Their youth knows no end, and they articulate the myth of eternity.

KWON Ki Soo. A transformation a decade, a youth a decade. Dongguri is an image composed with simple yet symbolic black lines in Kwon’s paintings. Anyone who sees it can’t help but smile; it’s a symbol of joy and hope. Ten years ago, accompanying Dongguri were always colorful fantastic forests, tall stretched tree trunks like fireworks and flowers and grass, in colors of all moods. Ten years later, broad-leaved forests replace tall stretched trunks; their colors are so rich and elegant that it’s as if the color palette has been splashed. Kwon creates a “curvilinear romantic hyperplane”. Now, Dongguri’s eyes further sparkle with rays of the cosmos, him wandering in the broad-leaved forest, content and comfortable. Like the myth, the leaves of youth have never fallen here.