“WHO AM I?” JUNNA MARUYAMA
Corey Helford Gallery welcomes a striking new voice to Downtown Los Angeles this winter with Who Am I?, the U.S. solo debut of Japanese artist Junna Maruyama. Opening Saturday, January 10, in Gallery 3 and running through February 14, the exhibition introduces Maruyama’s emotionally charged Pop-Surrealist universe to an American audience for the first time.
Known for her dreamlike portrayals of female figures suspended between innocence and unease, Maruyama works across painting, printmaking, and sculpture, blending traditional techniques with deliberately feminine materials. Glitter, heart stickers, and other gender-coded embellishments shimmer across her surfaces, softening the compositions while simultaneously amplifying their psychological tension.
At first glance, her subjects appear sweet—doll-like girls drawn from fairy tales, folklore, and imagined worlds, rendered in a vivid, shifting palette. Yet their vacant, unreadable gazes linger uncomfortably, creating a quiet dissonance that sits beneath the pastel fantasy. It is this balance—between beauty and discomfort, play and introspection—that defines Maruyama’s visual language.
A Question That Anchors the Work
The title Who Am I? is not simply an exhibition name, but a recurring philosophical anchor in Maruyama’s practice.
“Whenever I debut a solo show in a new place, I return to the theme ‘Who am I?’” Maruyama explains. “It’s the root of everything I make—every branch and bloom in my work grows from that question.”
For the artist, the inquiry is deeply personal. Having navigated hardship from a young age, Maruyama has long turned inward, using self-reflection as both a survival mechanism and a creative engine. That internal dialogue, she notes, has given her work a sense of conviction—confidence earned through lived experience rather than surface aesthetics.
Her paintings do not offer direct answers. Instead, they invite viewers into a shared space of questioning, where vulnerability and strength coexist, and where identity is allowed to remain fluid and unresolved.
Finding Joy Inside the Darkness
Despite the melancholic undertones present throughout the exhibition, Who Am I? is ultimately rooted in resilience.
“Everyone goes through their own version of hell,” Maruyama says. “No matter how hard things get, don’t overlook the small moments of joy. Even the worst times become part of what shapes us.”
That belief quietly informs the show. Sparkling surfaces and playful motifs act as counterweights to emotional weight, suggesting that joy is not the absence of pain, but something that can exist alongside it. The result is work that feels intimate rather than performative—confessional without being explicit.
The Gyaru Series and a Return to Roots
Among the standout bodies of work in the exhibition is Maruyama’s “Gyaru Series,” presented alongside her original character pieces that have earned her a devoted following across Asia. The series draws inspiration from Japan’s gyaru subculture, a hyper-feminine aesthetic movement that peaked from the late 1990s through the 2010s and embraced exaggerated makeup, bold fashion, and unapologetic self-expression.
For Maruyama, revisiting this aesthetic was both nostalgic and restorative.
“This traces back to my earliest period, before my work became commercially successful,” she shares. “Returning to it feels like returning to my roots—a reminder to paint freely and purely from the heart, without overthinking.”
In the context of Who Am I?, the Gyaru works function as both cultural homage and personal reset, reconnecting the artist with the instinctive joy that first drew her to painting.
Opening Night Details
Who Am I? opens to the public on Saturday, January 10, from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm at Corey Helford Gallery. Admission is free. The exhibition will be presented in Gallery 3, alongside a solo show in the Main Gallery by Chicago-based artist, illustrator, and toymaker Travis Lampe, titled The Ham-Fisted Coping Mechanism.
Together, the exhibitions offer an evening that spans emotional introspection, contemporary surrealism, and narrative-driven visual worlds—hallmarks of Corey Helford Gallery’s curatorial vision.
Who Am I? remains on view through February 14, marking a compelling introduction of Junna Maruyama to the U.S. art scene—and a thoughtful meditation on identity, femininity, and becoming.