An oil painting & its story

Beyond Destiny

A girl, a mirror gone dark, and a table of old remedies — and the question of what it means to live knowing that one day we will die.

“Life becomes something we desperately wish to understand, yet can never entirely grasp.”

I have always been fascinated by the inevitable cycle of human existence: birth, aging, sickness, and death. When I was ten, I loved mythical beings, witches, and physicists. As I grew older, that fascination slowly turned into questions. What if the worlds of witches, healers, and physicists were not entirely fictional? What if something existed beyond our understanding — something that could predict our futures, or find a cure before illness ever reached us?

Painting of a young girl with long black hair and a headscarf, eyes lowered to a row of antique remedy bottles, a gilt-framed mirror clouded in black and gray behind her.
Beyond Destiny  ·  oil on canvas
The painting

She turns away from the mirror

A girl stands among mysterious bottles of potions and remedies, an antique mirror behind her. At first I imagined her as an aspiring healer, learning to harness the mirror’s power to alter the course of human existence.

But as the painting grew, the mirror grew darker. Rather than revealing the futures she wished to understand, it seemed to conceal something ominous — perhaps a destiny she could not escape. I painted it in black and gray on purpose, stripping away the clarity we expect from a reflection.

She does not look at it. Her gaze rests on the bottles instead: an uneasy awareness of something beyond her control, and a quiet determination to find answers through her own knowledge.

The people behind it

Small remedies

Mortality became personal when I lost my aunt, whom I had known since the day I was born, to stage 3 cancer — and when my family friend, a mother, was lost to depression and suicide. I remember them through gestures that once seemed ordinary.

Remedy · monthly

Japanese Sweets & Crackers

from my aunt

Enormous boxes arrived in the mail every month. We would eagerly finish them within a week.

Remedy · age ten

Roller Skate Shoes

from my aunt, in secret

I wanted them desperately. My mother said no. My aunt quietly bought them for me anyway.

Remedy · when needed

Encouragement

from my family friend

Supportive advice to keep going with my art — even when I felt I was losing my joy of drawing.

Love often lives in the smallest acts of generosity — the ones we may never fully appreciate until time has passed. Losing them made me wonder whether anything could reverse time, prevent loss, or protect the people we love from the inevitable.

What changed

Seeking the power, or resisting it?

At first I wanted to know what would happen if she were learning to heal through the mirror’s power. Now I find myself asking something else: was she ever truly seeking that power — or was she trying to resist the darkness hidden inside it?

Perhaps the mirror is the temptation to transcend destiny, and the bottles are her attempt to find another path. Her pursuit of knowledge becomes a contradiction: the very power she desires may lead her toward the fate she wishes to escape.

“Perhaps the greatest mystery is not whether we can discover the secrets of life, but whether we can accept the things that remain beyond our control.”
Left on the table
In my own words

The story of Beyond Destiny

What does it mean to live knowing that one day we will die? I have always been fascinated by the inevitable cycle of human existence: birth, aging, sickness, and death. As we grow older, we begin to question the value of time, the uncertainty of our future, and the inevitability of our own mortality. Life becomes something we desperately wish to understand, yet can never entirely grasp.

When I was ten, I was fascinated by mythical beings, witches, and physicists. As I grew older, my fascination gradually transformed into questions. What if the worlds of witches, healers, and physicists were not entirely fictional? What if something existed beyond our understanding, capable of predicting our futures or discovering treatments before illness ever reached us? Would our lives change if the mysteries we once imagined became reality?

My understanding of mortality became profoundly personal when I lost my aunt, someone I had known since birth who passed from progressive stage 3 cancer, as well as my family friend’s mother who passed from depression causing to commit suicide. I remember my aunt through the small gestures that once seemed ordinary. When I was younger, she would mail enormous boxes of Japanese sweets and crackers every month, which we would eagerly finish within a week. When I was ten, I desperately wanted a pair of roller skate shoes, but my mother refused to buy them. My aunt secretly purchased them for me anyway. As well as my family friend, who supported me by giving me supportive advice and encouragement along the way to continue my art career even when I felt like I was losing my joy of drawing.

Looking back, these memories remind me that love often exists in the smallest acts of generosity, the ones we may never fully appreciate until time has passed. Losing them made me confront the permanence of something I had once taken for granted. I began questioning whether there was anything capable of reversing time, preventing loss, or protecting the people we love from the inevitable.

In my painting, a girl stands among mysterious bottles of potions and remedies, facing an antique mirror. Initially, I imagined her as an aspiring healer, learning to harness the mirror’s supernatural power to alter the course of human existence. However, as I developed the painting, the mirror gradually became something darker. Rather than revealing the futures she wished to understand, it seemed to conceal something ominous, perhaps even a destiny she could not escape. I deliberately painted the mirror in black and gray, stripping it of the clarity and possibility associated with reflection.

The girl turns away from it, her gaze fixed instead upon the bottles scattered across the table. Her refusal to acknowledge the mirror suggests an uneasy awareness of something beyond her control, while her attention toward the remedies reflects her determination to seek answers through her own knowledge.

As I continued developing this piece, my perspective shifted. At first, I wanted to know what would happen if the girl were learning to become a healer through the mirror’s power. What I find myself paying attention to now is whether she was ever truly seeking its power, or whether she had been trying to resist the darkness concealed within it. Perhaps the mirror represents the temptation to transcend destiny, while the bottles represent her attempt to find another path. Her pursuit of knowledge becomes a contradiction: the very power she desires may ultimately lead her toward the fate she wishes to escape.

Through Beyond Destiny, I explore the tension between our desire to alter the inevitable and our fear of what such an attempt might cost. Perhaps the greatest mystery is not whether we can discover the secrets of life, but whether we can accept the things that remain beyond our control.

If we could predict our endings, would we cherish our beginnings differently? If destiny could be rewritten, would we truly become free, or would we simply inherit another uncertainty?