Artwork text
The moon raises both its arms
and covers its eyes.
It cannot bear to look.
Below,
a small boat crosses the black water.
A bare tree reaches out its hand.
The moon, to the end,
with its eyes still covered,
lights that night.
Even unseen, sorrow does not vanish.
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.