Artwork text
He boarded the boat.
He goes to Ieodo.
Toward the place from which one does not return.
The things he had painted all his life,
he pared away, one by one.
He pared away the wind,
pared away the waves,
pared away even his signature.
For the one who would write the name
was already no longer there.
In the place where all had been pared away,
he left only a single horse.
With a faint line,
with a body whose form seems about to come undone,
the horse does not leave.
While its master goes to Ieodo,
it remains on this land,
and from the edge of the field of dry grass
watches his back as he goes.
But the horse
does not cry.
Those who have walked together for a long time
know, even from afar.
This is not a farewell,
but the road taken first.
Having ended his exile
and set down even the blessing,
he goes to Ieodo.
Without a signature.
Leaving only one horse
on this land.
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.