Artwork text
The painter, who stood alone on the shore all his life,
drew the two people he most wanted beside him
as trees.
He brought them near again,
and beneath them seated himself like a child.
At the foot of the trees.
Close enough to touch if he reached out his hand.
He longs for those who are near,
yet cannot be reached.
Because they are not beside him,
he set them standing in the painting.
Because he cannot reach them,
he sat at their feet.
Calling the names he cannot call "trees,"
he stays for a long time beneath them.
Even when the sun cools
and darkness falls,
he does not leave.
Because he is their child.
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.