This exhibition 《Falling Flower, Blossoming Heart: Kim Ji-ha’s Dharma》highlights paintings on Dharma by Kim Ji-ha, an activist poet and a symbolic figure of Korean democratization. The poet, having broken a new ground of literati painting by the lavishly praised orchid paintings, presents his own ‘unprecedented’ Dharma paintings. Kim Ji-ha’s Dharma paintings make us listen to the ensemble of lyricism and symbolism with the pleasure of finding ourselves in that. In ‘Falling Flower, Blossoming Heart’, falling flower is the symbol of despair, disappearing thing and a place to final return. Dharma’s callous disregard of that signifies the vanity of life in one hand and evokes the most lyrical atmosphere on the other. We come to the realization, in《Falling Flower, Blossoming Heart: Kim Ji-ha’s Dharma》, that we can surpass sorrow with joy, pain with jest, agony with audacity.
