Artwork text
Seen at a glance,
it is just a yellowed surface.
A single horizon line,
a few black lines.
But seen long, it is different.
In the center,
a haenyeo lies heavily, face down.
Her body
slowly comes forth.
Far to the left,
a single small boat
hangs like a dot on the horizon.
Seen too quickly, it disappears.
Only by looking long
do you see what the sea has shed.
The faded color
is not empty.
A sorrow that could not be spoken
has seeped into it.
To gaze long
is to find, within the faded color,
a long-held weeping.
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.