Artwork text
The same Ieodo theme as Works 01, 63, 64, and 65.
The boat came back.
The person
did not come back.
The empty boat is the only proof
that the fisher reached Ieodo.
Seeing that boat,
a crow cries.
With no one left to weep,
the bird weeps in that person's place.
Ieodo cannot be seen.
Only the empty boat that returned
bears silent witness
that the place is there.
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.