Artwork text
The horse has been left alone,
yet beneath its feet
a black shadow stays with it.
The sun does not return
the one it could not hold.
It only lays a shadow
in that empty place.
On days when longing is too deep
to bear alone,
the sun, without a word,
sets beside the horse a shape
that moves with it.
And so the horse,
even after the boat has vanished,
is not entirely alone.
Perhaps consolation
is not the erasing of sorrow,
but quietly remaining
beside that sorrow.
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.