Artwork text
He looks neither at the sea, nor at the sun, nor at the horse beside him.
He has gone deep into the world held in his own hands.
However wide the world may be, one small patch beneath the tree is enough for
him.
Because no one calls him, he can remain there wholly.
The horse does its own work, the boat its own, the sun its own.
Because they do not touch, they do not disturb one another.
Peace was a light that, at the end of drawing away, emptying out, and stepping back,
settled quietly on a single patch where no one was.
Even as the sun sinks, he does not rise,
as if it were all right for the world to forget him.
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.