Artwork text
A man and a horse have returned at the end of a long road. The horse lowers
its head, and the man, with a weary body, stands beside it. To return is not
to go back to the time before leaving. The house is empty, the one who
waited is no longer there, and the past does not open again. Still, they return.
At the end of every departure, there is something that returns, however
weary. Even after losing the way, even with a bent body, even with no one to
welcome it, one heart remains, turning at last toward its own place. Perhaps
Departure was destiny, and return was fate.
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.