A screen full of emotions

Professor Park Young-taek’s review of judicial works

It is difficult to define painting, but there are probably as many of them as there are painters. Painting is often said to be a device that creates illusion on the surface. Physically speaking, the ontological condition of painting is flat. Drawing is the task of leaving something visual on that flat skin and surface. If abstraction is intended to avoid violating flatness, it would be possible to implement the logic and technology of infinite representation without being caught up in the logic of flatness. In any case, painting is also about creating surface quality through paint and brushstrokes on a given screen. Chirico, who advocated metaphysical painting, asserted that great painting is the texture of the canvas and that there is no beauty that can overcome it. This was after seeing a painting by Titian that he rediscovered in his 30s. Although it is not the only good painting, a painting is primarily interpreted and appreciated based on the quality of the given picture. I enjoy the surface achieved with the artist's unique sense, sensitivity, and technique. Whether it is figurative or abstract is a separate issue. The subject may also be nothing more than an alibi in some way.

Rather than drawing something, Buddhist monk Beopgwan repeatedly paints the surface, draws brushstrokes, and makes dots. Of course, such an act is already a pictorial act, but for me, the monk's painting approaches me as a type of desire, a kind of most primitive act that takes precedence over it. You may draw something, but you are not drawing anything. Simply painting, drawing, and stamping to make drawing possible shows sufficient saturation. This is a stagnation and accumulation of countless time and repeated physical actions. It seems to be a matter of offering prayers through it, earnestly bowing with all one's heart and body, and the quality of the shining picture that one hopes to achieve by painting with the same sincerity as the result of such repeated actions. Ultimately, the monk's painstaking efforts to create a surface that visualized and revealed all of his feelings, including the depth he was trying to reach, all the things that were difficult to visualize, and the impressions he received from the excellent works of art he had encountered so far. Isn't this a picture of ? In fact, all paintings will ultimately aim at such a state as their ultimate goal.

The monk's recent work is an abstract painting in which all elements reminiscent of concrete shapes or images have been erased. There are no concrete images reminiscent of the outside world. Of course, even on a screen full of colors and lines, it is possible to conjure up specific images. We call paintings that do not have at least such elements drawn on the screen abstract. At the same time, we can also consider the dimension of questioning the ontological conditions of painting. The monk recognizes the plane and excludes illusion. So the picture is flat. However, as the lines rise, the colors are painted, and the background surface (white) is gradually revealed, the screen forms subtle layers, creates depth, and creates a passage for air to pass through. Even if you follow the traces made by the lines, your gaze may fall into the blank spaces/gaps left between them. A screen made up of several layers is by no means a flat, physical surface. It is a generative and energetic screen, a screen that is extremely calm but sensitive to subtle waves, and an attractive screen left behind by sensuous lines and intermittent brushstrokes.

Rather than trying to paint something, the monk's painting was simply soaked with paint and painted on a simple canvas that excluded illusions, thinking about human life and the providence of nature. It seems that he tried to draw something that cannot be defined, elucidated, or shaped, and wanted to draw a world like nature. As a result, all of the monk's paintings became abstract paintings that denied illusion, artificial forms, or expressive gestures, so-called post-formal abstract paintings, and at the same time, self-sufficient paintings composed only of canvas, paint, and brushes. This naturalistic characteristic, which allows the form to exert its own vitality rather than creating or reproducing something, and its highly random aspect, is a trope often mentioned when talking about Korean abstract art.

The colors are monochromatic. Most are blue. However, it is not a single color, but has subtle differences even within blue. Several colors are mixed and breathing, and the elasticity of the paints is also different. Some works, like watercolors, have a strong tendency to spread and spread through the effect of light and shade. There is a taste of light and shade as if soaking a linen cloth, and in another work, the physical properties of sticky paint fill the screen, molding the surface into a homogeneous texture and tone. However, the inside is not single, so lines of various colors and expressions are piled up, and various changes are made depending on the density of paint, and it becomes a place where differences in the thickness and direction of the lines occur. If you think about it, this painting embraces complex and diverse things within a simple composition, and the individual elements are in harmony with each other, creating a form that suggests a quiet and peaceful, or rather quiet and deep, situation. Rather than indicating something, a painting generates some kind of feeling or sensation. It is a world behind what is visible, a world that can only be felt, and a world that cannot be reached through text or logic. So is the monk drawing a picture? I wonder if this is what Monk Beopgwan is trying to convey through the painting. And in the end, such paintings are not separated from the daily life of the practicing monk. This is a drawing that is no different from spells or meditation. Furthermore, it shows that a painting made with utmost sincerity and effort is a sufficient painting in itself.