Artwork text
White waves come driving into the wide sea.
A black cliff thrusts its head toward the sea, and on the ridge above it a horse and a
row of trees stand.
Between the cliffs a single white stream pours down, and far off Hallasan rises low.
On the right shore a person crouches small.
There are two ways to face the wind: to stand against it, or to go with it.
What stands upright breaks first.
The trees on the ridge lie down together, following the wind.
To endure is not to defeat the wind, but perhaps to bend together just enough not
to break.
Key context
Byun Shi-Ji was a Korean modern and contemporary painter who treated Jeju’s Fūdo not as scenery but as a condition of existence. Through solitude, waiting, wind and the colour of dried grass, his art formed a glocal modernism rooted in Korea and open to the world.