Artwork text
I lie on the ground and set down all my heaviness. The weariness of the days I have
lived, and the regret of the road I chose poorly. A single crow looks quietly down at
me. In its black eyes there is no judgment, no question. The world keeps asking
who I am, but the crow does not ask. It only stays nearby, so that I am not alone.
After looking for a long time, I begin to resemble the crow, and the crow begins to
resemble me. On the same earth, we look at the same sky. Even as the sun goes
down, my heart grows a little lighter. To know each other's solitude without
speaking. That is the conversation between the crow and me.
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.