Artwork text
The sea at dusk lies quietly in a yellowed light. Above the horizon, a small boat
drifts far away. Near at hand, a person leaning on a staff, and a horse. Though they
are within the same sea, the two stand apart. Close to each other, yet each has
already become a separate island of light. It is the light of parting: the light that lets
one look at what leaves, and helps what remains endure. In the end, both the
person and the horse remain as their own islands of parting.
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.