Artwork text
The thatched house remains on the hill,
the boat floats on the sea.
The tree leans toward the wind,
the horse turns its head toward the small boat.
No person is visible.
The horse waits in their place.
Even when what has left does not return,
the gaze remains for a long time.
Perhaps waiting is the heart turned toward that side,
unable, in the end, to draw itself back.
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.