100 Works/FŪDO 025
The Wavering Skiff
흔들리는 조각배
Basic information
| Identifier | FŪDO 025 |
|---|---|
| Title | The Wavering Skiff흔들리는 조각배 |
| Date | 1987 |
Short commentary
Endurance means sharing the wavering of a distant existence and refusing to withdraw one's gaze.
Artwork text · poem
Text by Byun Joung Hoon
A sea the color of dried grass tilts, filling the whole surface.
Far to the left, a single skiff trembles like a dot.
But it is not only the boat that trembles.
The black waves tremble, the thatched house on the hill trembles,
and the hearts of the horse and the person tremble within the same wind.
The boat is on the sea, the person and the horse are on land.
They are in different places, yet within the same unease.
The person cannot hold the boat,
and the horse cannot stop that trembling.
There is nothing they can do.
So one thing remains to be done.
To watch.
The thatched house lowers itself,
the horse stands beside the person,
and the person never takes his eyes off the sea.
To endure is not to keep from trembling.
It is to bear, within one's own heart, the trembling of a being far away,
and in the end not to turn one's eyes away.
The wavering skiff is a small boat upon the sea,
and also a single life that wavers within a person.
The world is wide and the boat is small.
Yet because of that one small being,
everything on land quietly holds its breath.
Map of relations · Middle Jeju I, 1980–1987
Ieodo, dried-grass colour, storms, wavering horizons and the black sun.
- boat
- endurance
Related oral history
Life & time
- 1987The Wavering Skiff was painted in 1987.





