Yūgen Collection

The name of this collection comes from the title of the first print I sold to the President's wife at the college I graduated from. The word yūgen is usually translated as “mysterious profundity”. Yūgen is a sense not to enjoy the superficial beauty of an object, which is in front of our eyes but to enhance the beauty more impressive by imagining its latent beauty. For this design I chose to focus on a singular woman and strip them down to their whole and winding forms side by side. when one looks at a woman and sees their beauty, that part remains only superficial. The woman has a past of laughing, withstanding pain, enduring, and will someday wither no matter how beautiful. Although the beautiful woman itself impresses us, the beauty of life will be more impressive than the superficial beauty, when we can imagine its past and future. That is yūgen to me.