Cheongju, b. 1992

I once read a column by a Korean journalist. In it, he recounted a moment during his travels in the Middle East when he suddenly remembered a novel he had read in his youth that had left a deep impression on him. On a whim, he stepped into a shop and purchased a carpet. Rather than placing it on the floor, he brought it home and hung it on the wall as a decoration. While working on my own practice, I found myself struggling for a time, unsure of what kind of painting I should make. Some pieces came easily, but others did not. As I looked at the discarded canvas and paint, I tried to understand the cause, but I could only feel lost and uncertain. Recently, however, I had a chance to look deeper into myself. A few significant events—some big, some small—created that opportunity. I began to retrace memories I had previously passed over without much thought, flipping through old photo albums, selecting images that resonated with me in a different way than before. I even read the novel that had inspired the journalist. In the novel, the carpet is a gift given to the protagonist by an old poet when asked what life is. Only later, after experiencing the various hardships of life, does the protagonist come to understand its meaning. The carpet affirms the purposelessness of life. Just as the weaver wove the carpet to fulfill their own aesthetic sensibility, without any other purpose, we too must accept that life is not about clinging to each and every event, but about recognizing that our own pattern is gradually taking shape. Reflecting on the story, I felt a sense of peace. Like the weaver crafting the carpet, like the journalist who chose to hang it on the wall rather than lay it on the floor, I fixed raw canvas directly to the wall, without a frame, and traced its surface with dry, short brushstrokes, as if following the warp threads of a carpet. This method of working felt natural. As I focused on the rough texture of the brushstrokes, the painting began to take on a pattern of its own.