About  "GIFT-series"

The beauty that I encountered in 2000 was one relating to 'poison.'

It was not the poison itself, but rather the attempt to grasp and express the beauty of the an object that embraces poison that lead me to the GIFT series.

The idea of the 'poison' is probably disturbing to most people, because it can be use in hostility, to harm and even kill. Therefore, initially it caused me confusion and contradiction to sense 'beauty' associated with poison.

The arrow-poison frog that contains deadly toxin, Chatherine de Medicis, the major Renaissance patron who used poison for murder, the Chinese emperors who imbibed mercury in the hope of eternal youth and life, and the people who used face powder made from lead in full of knowledge that it was deadly.

All of these figures posses a unique form of beauty, their dark determination to posses or to utilize poison in order to survive, and their solitude resulting from this choice. This is certainly an understandable aspect of life. Just as beauty is also diverse, the life that senses beauty is also diverse. It is this very connection between poison and life that gives beauty to things relating to poison.