Artist Background

From my earliest memories, I loved both drawing and looking at paintings, and at the age of ten I made a vow to become a painter. Before entering art university, I studied at a private atelier; then in the summer of my second year of high school, I saw Claude Monet's Waterloo Bridge at an Impressionist exhibition for the first time — and in that instant, I was overwhelmed by a sense of deep resonance and became wholly captivated by Monet. During my time at art university, I traveled to France and visited the Louvre and the Marmottan Monet Museum. The Orangerie — the museum I had looked forward to most — was closed for foundation repairs, but in 1992, after graduating, I finally stood before Monet's monumental Water Lilies: a panoramic cycle spanning 90 meters, painted at the age of eighty with every last ounce of his being.

After retiring as principal, the time had finally come to fulfill a dream I had carried since the age of ten: to become a painter. In 2023, I visited Giverny, France — a lifelong dream realized at last. Standing beside the lily pond in the morning light, I witnessed the gardeners who have tended that beautiful landscape for over a hundred years since Monet's death. In that moment, my heart was deeply moved. Their quiet figures naturally overlapped with the many people who had supported my work as a school principal from behind the scenes, and I was filled with profound gratitude. In that instant, my lifelong theme as a painter became clear: to paint the "nameless endeavors" — the people who work unseen, quietly, for someone else. It was the moment when twenty years of education and a lifetime of love for painting came together into a single answer.