Artwork text
Three children
raised in one nest
fly up,
each toward a sky of their own.
The father remains inside the house
and looks up at their wings.
Proud,
and a little lonely.
The painter who painted departure all his life
this time painted the departure of his children.
But to fly up
means they were raised well.
In the sky the color of dry grass,
three birds.
The greatest fulfillment
the father leaves behind.
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.