Artwork text
Above the house, two trees stand.
On the wall, two crows perch.
The house is held in the arms of the stone wall,
and all the things of the land each have something beside them.
Only on the sea, a single boat floats alone.
In the place where those that stay become each other's companions,
they wait long for the one that has left.
Waiting may be the act by which those who have something beside them
never, in the end,
forget the one left without a companion.
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.