The windy Jeju makes us think about a lot of things. Solitude.. Anxiety… Longing… Sorrow…
The painter said Jeju to be like this.
And he filled the windy Jeju in his paintings.
Byun, Shi-Ji's Art & Life(TV-Museum)
In his paintings, there are the sea, the wind, ponies and continuous the most Jejulike things. However it seems that even foreign people who have never been to Jeju feel something in his paintings. Something to touch the mind, although we are different in skin colors and we cannot communicate with one another because of the language barrier, over these things,
What was the feeling indeed? ?From now on, we will meet Artist Byun Shi Ji’s paintings.
One hour to South along the seashore road from Jeju International Airport. We meet Kidang Art Museum around Oedolgae, Seogwipo City. ?
The art museum whose shape is the traditional house of Jeju with containing the body of grandfa’s statue made up of stone (Dolharubang).
In the sound of wind growing bamboo trees over the window… At first, we appreciate about 50 works of abstract pictures displayed on the 1st floor. These are the collection collected by Artist Byun Shi Ji, honorary curator of Kidang Art Museum.
After appreciating the pictures, we go up to the display room on the 2nd floor. Now, we can meet Jeju again there.
Byun Shi Ji’s unique Jeju whose color is only mud yellow.
A woman visitor: “First, it’s likely that some messages come to me. The thing which I can feel what the works mean at a sight even if the color senses are not splendid but simple.”
A man visitor: “It seems that not many colors and a few lines express very many codes. Of course, it has some picturesque features and it hides something to express himself, which is very fun.”
It is a discovery.
Primitive Jeju wiggly and lively moving… At first sight, his pictures are all similar. ?
It has ponies, humans.., waterfalls of Jeju and flocks of crows.
Lucky bird of only Jeju that has kept the sky of Jeju for thousands of years.. Time disappears in the pictures. ?
Solitude and Sorrow… Nature existing in the middle of things.. Things unchanged from time immemorial to now.
Motives of life such as longing and waiting only remain.
They make a lump in the storm.
Just like what the universe of beginning of the world did.
Art Critic : “ He paints Jeju with emphasizing artistic aesthetic point of view and emotion unlike to a ?person who tries to express Jeju’s nature and appearance only as southern romantic colors, which is the right Byun Shi ji’s creativity. ???
Prof.: “Appearance of Jeju is only material for him, it’s only one of tools to express compassion on human beings.. and solitude., thus we consider that he cannot be classified as a simple localism or landscape painter of Jeju.”
Prof. Jong-Taek Seo who is the professor of department of Korean language and literature not of college of art is an art fan.
He who has written some columns about art works on magazines met Byun Shi Ji’s pictures by accident.
After that day, he became a Byun Shi Ji mania to write some books and to announce his pictures.
Prof. Jong-Taek Seo: “Just then, Artist Byun Shi Ji’s pictures were on air through a broadcasting company. It differed entirely from the landscape of Jeju I’ve seen. That is, on the ground of yellowish brown and extremely abridged black ink lines and a bird and a slouchy man. ?It was such a simple composition, however it was the first picture I felt the landscape of Jeju so keenly and clearly.
The man in the painting makes us feel choked with emotion.
Sometimes we are moved to tears.
An isolated island, Jeju… In Jeju, the solitude is feelingly so deep. ?
Artist Byun Shi Ji. ?People don’t know him well.
However he was a promising painter who started painting lesson at his 16 years old and who made Japanese world of artists surprised at his 23 years old.
Why did such a talented man come back to Korea with giving up his celebrity in Japan?
And why of all places have he painted in Jeju for such a long time?
Every morning, the painter takes a walk at 9. ?His step is always the same with carrying a stick and wearing a beret.
He has been walking during his lifetime as such.
An apartment in Seoqwipo… He’s lived alone here for 30 years.
Taking a walk for 20mins in a day and looking at a canvas all day long, which is the painter’s schedule.
He is 79 years old. ??It is a very lonely struggle that he has already associated with for about 70 years. ?
Jeju is his hometown. At his 6 years old, he went to Japan with his father who came out to find the wider world.
In his 2nd year in an elementary school he broke his leg in wrestling, which was the chance for him to go to the way of painter.
He who was so won the best prize in ‘Violent Gale Art Exhibition’ whose authority is the best in Japan in 1948. ?
Artist Byun Shi ji who was paid all attention of Japanese world of artists because he was not only the youngest the best prize winner prize in ‘Violent Gale Art Exhibition’ ?but also the youngest judge at his 23 years. ?
?However the more brilliant his success was, the louder his opposite’s voices were. < He is different from us in his blood.> ?
In 1957, at last he decided permanent coming back to his native country.
Byun Shi ji: “They didn’t believe me. They believe it is impossible to win the best prize in prize in ‘Violent Gale Art Exhibition’ at such a young age… and furthermore, it’s hard to be so in a foreign country. Thus the rumor that I was a fraud flew in my surroundings without my recognition.
And he was married and settled down, there was no place for him to stand. He visited ‘Secret Garden of Royal Palace ‘ just opened as a day’s routine.
A graceful curve and profound color tones, among which he could find Korean beauty not to be found in Japan.
So to speak, school of ‘Secret Garden of Royal Palace ‘, which was his first name in Korea.
Art Critic: “The worry how we can digest oil paintings into Korean and traditional things made Su-Geon Park’s style to get rid of oiliness from oil paintings and to produce dry and mat tone. While through oil painting, they tried to paint white porcelain or still life arts for four gracias plants, the trend was considered as the big current of oil painting at those days in my opinion, which succeeded to the 50s~60s. Artist Do, Sang-Bong and Artist Byun Shi Ji are doing the very Korean and traditional oil paintings even though they paint oil paintings with making pots, old furniture and old buildings their major materials.
However, in 1975 he leaves for Jeju again.
Although his paintings of ‘Secret Garden of Royal Palace ‘ sold as a high price, still they were not his own pictures.
Coming back home in 44 years. ??Homeland nobody’s welcoming. He who was exhausted and tired to find his own pictures came back to his hometown as if looking for a mother.
However Jeju where he came back from far Japan via Seoul asked a primitive question to him.
< What kind of pictures on earth do you want to paint?>
Hometown. ?Dear images to be seen in 44 years. ?Yet, even in the things, pictures would not come off.
No matter how hard he painted, his mind was not fulfilled.
He was anther isolated island in Jeju.
The stronger the sunlight of Jeju was, the fainter the colors of the pictures became.
Absolute Solitude. ?In it, the painter who failed to find his own art decided to throw away his everything.
Byun Shi Ji: ” I struggled to make it with being away from my family, to create something. However I could not get a satisfied work. So I drank every day and I agonized very much. There is a Suicide Rock on Byuldo Peak, sometimes, I climbed up there.”
On the cliff, he threw away entirely his paintings that he had painted until then.
In front of a white canvas whose color and shape disappeared. On it, he started paintings again.
Wandering for 2 years. At the end of the wandering, finally he found a new light.
Byun Shi Ji’s Jeju Art… Jeju gets a new life at the end of his brush touch.
All of land, sky and colors turn mud yellow, and the shapes become simple endlessly.
Byun Shi Ji: “The light is different from that of Japan and land. Why is the light different? To me, the sun is felt closer and the light is stronger in Jeju than in Japan and Seoul. If it so white, it is felt as rather yellowish. It was not enough although I tried various ways. In my work, there was no textbook, either. In the meantime, I saw the light. So I discarded numerous beautiful colors and only drew a line in black ink.”
In the wind, the sky and the sea and a person become one. ?
While we look at his paintings, we feel as if we stood in the storm.
The crew we always see is not a bird, and the tree is not a just tree.
In the piece of his painting, the artist’s mind is contained.
In the paintings, the painter always stands.
With waiting for someone.. and longing for something. He is standing with staring at the world.
Art Critic Lee, Gu-Yeol: “Such a simple human figure, which is Byun Shi Ji’s feature, by which, viewers of the pictures get some other feelings from general paintings. So to call, they can get double or triple feelings at a time, which is unique to Artist Byun Shi Ji.”
In 80s, he made a trip to Europe.
However the scenery of Europe that he brought from 1-month- trip in 1981 is not so much different from that of Jeju.
That’s because even thought the space is different, the nature of human’s life and the beauty is the same.
Artist Byun Shi Ji who paints only Jeju…. However he is one of a few Korean painters whose names are listed on foreign art appreciation Internet sites or art education sites.
On the place that introduces Picasso and Modigliani… Among the masters, Byun Shi ji is introduced as an artist of Korea.
Probably, they who are in foreign countries may feel ‘the loneliness of being’ contained in Byun Shi Ji’s paintings together. ??
Art Critic: “ In Byun Shi Ji’s paintings, not only gentleman’s world to be shown in such traditional literary artists’ styles but also a union of human, universe and nature are expressed compressively and clearly, his picture does not stay in scenery of Jeju, in my opinion, which is the reason of attractiveness familiar to Korean and also to be felt as very oriental and Korean motive even to foreign people all over the nation
Even these days, Artist Byun Shi Ji stands in front of the sea.
He is still finding something.
The shape of beauty for him to show after discarding such many colors. Other shapes to be drawn after discarding numerous shapes… New lives to be born among disappeared things. He waits for the moment of creation in the continuous sound of waves.
Byun Shi Ji: “Just. ?Perfect selflessness. The spiritual state of perfect selflessness. When I hear the sound of waves, I feel some fun. It’s like a melody, or sound of music .. My family in Seoul….. Well… “
During 78 years, his loneliness deepened more.
Nowadays, there are more days to look into his paintings than to paint pictures. ??
That’s because of his belief that for change, we should reflect and for reflection we should look back.
Byun Shi Ji: “I still have a hope. I have something. There may be some regrets. Once more. Although I have a hope, I cannot know how long it will take. ?However isn’t it enough if I can have only one painting after I repent my works?”
The person who can wait in pain… The person who can drive himself to the end of cliff. Therefore the person who can move somebody’s mind. An artist may be the person.
Artist Byun Shi Ji. He still says the hope. That can be why his art is still alive.
Artist Byun Shi Ji says like this.
< It is the same in nature to feel the beauty and to make the beauty. It is such a meaning that to keep a beautiful work in our minds is the same to make an art work.>
I thought why the sky shines in mud yellow and why the sky and the land come together here, in Jeju today.
According to Artist Byun Shi Ji, haven’t I made a piece of work with you here, in Jeju?
Way to go to Art Museum. See you next week.
