Artwork text
The same Ieodo theme as Works 01 and 63.
A rough sea
pushed a small boat ashore.
The boat returned,
but the fisher was nowhere to be seen.
A single crow
cries at the sight of the empty boat.
With no one left to weep,
the bird weeps in their place.
The empty boat
is the only proof
of one who could not return.
The sea keeps silent,
and only the crow's cry
bears witness to that absence.
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.