Artwork text
The sea rises up.
Before the fate of a single skiff,
the sky, holding back its tears,
looks down.
The figure inside the house,
unable to bear the sight, crouches,
and the horse on the cape
cannot take its eyes
off the drifting boat.
The greatest things in the world,
unable to do anything
before the smallest one,
hold their breath.
By force,
the sea could swallow the boat.
But at heart,
unable to do anything for that one boat,
the sky weeps.
Before a single small being,
the sea, the sky, the earth
can do nothing.
Before the wind, the whole world,
for one moment,
stops breathing.
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.