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each other and form an endless relationship of cause and effect. ‘Indramang’ symbolically reveals the worldview of dependent origination
law that appears in the Avatamsaka Sutra(華嚴經). Jeongsan Yeon-Sik Kim likens this network of connections, the Indramang, to the
composition of the four movements of a symphony. He is developing the previously mentioned first movement <Infinite World in a
Cup>, the second movement <Drive of Waves and Particles>, the third movement <Swap>, and the fourth movement <Moon, Wind and
Clouds>. Below, we will briefly look at the meaning of the first, second, and third movements, and then discuss the fourth movement,
which is a compilation of all of them in different sections.
In the development of the first movement, <Infinite World in a Cup>, art critic Choong-Hwan Koh reads it as ‘like a fingerprint of nature
or a fingerprint of a landscape.’ It reveals the uniqueness that was naturally formed over time. Here we see overlapping associations of
microscopic and macroscopic landscapes at the same time. It crosses the border between abstraction and concrete form, and further
connects the micro and macro worlds, showing a borderline landscape where sensory phenomena and ideological reality mix with
each other. It is truly a production of an indeterminate and subtle landscape. A shape is created during the process of putting paint in a
cup and pouring it out, and at this time, an organic solvent is mixed with the paint to adjust the viscosity. Using the marbling technique,
shapes are created as if by surrealistic automatism, regardless of the artist’s intention. The marbling technique, which creates works by
taking advantage of the effect of chance, takes advantage of the heterogeneous nature of water and oil that do not mix with each other.
It involves dropping oil paint on water, stirring it, and then covering the water with paper to allow the paint to stick to it. At this time, color
layers appear that form subtle layers and blend together as if they are not mixed. The first cup, which contained the artist’s artistic will, was
one of the fundamental causes of the origin of the world, borrowing an expression from Aristotle (384-322 BC), it served as the first cause.
The first cause is the first cause-giver, and it is in contact with the source of being.
As art critic Seon-Young Lee points out, the second movement, <Drive of Waves and Particles>, shows colored particles forming waves,
bobbing, bending, colliding, and the boundaries where they meet are fluid. As is well known, wave-particle duality is a property in
quantum mechanics where all substances have both particle and wave properties at the same time. The fact that light has both properties
has already been proven through several experiments, and it was later discovered that not only light but all other substances also have
the dual properties of both particles and waves. By analogy, when the flow of time is viewed as a particle, it is a time, a viewpoint, and a
moment, but when viewed as a wave, it becomes history as an accumulation of a long time and continues endlessly into eternity. In his
work, color is the shape of a wave made up of infinite continuity of particles. The main form of the work is metaphorized as a connected
network rather than individual lines or strips. There, the ecosystem grows and develops, forming a web of life. The huge spherical
installation work created in 2014 uses 48,000 razor blades hanging from 1,600 transparent strings to reflect the viewer, and the reflective
surfaces of the razor blades project all the images like mirrors, creating an ‘Indramang’ look. It showed that they were connected. For
him, work is not so much a painting as a process in which chance intervenes in the process of creating a trajectory for the paint. This
intervention of chance leads to necessity. 1) It is as if the phenomenon of life begins as a chance and unfolds as a necessity. The artist says,
“The path of art is like cultivating Tao(道).” This is because art is the result of long patience and practice. In the third movement, ‘Swap’
means ‘exchange, interchange, or replacement.’ Instead of using a brush, the canvas the work is filled by using business cards, plastic cards,
wooden knives, butter knives, etc. to apply paint, then wipe it off or scrape it off. In this way, the thickly painted part is erased thinly, and
the other thinly erased part is thickened, leaving traces of the paint. What is ‘exchanging and replacing’? Colors meet each other to form
lines and surfaces, creating boundaries at the same time. Across the border, it partially influences and permeates from both sides at the
same time, secretly but unintentionally exchanging and converting something, creating various forms that are completely different from
before and have a new influence. It is an approach that reconstructs the previous shape differently. We can think of this shape not as a
static object, but as a process of constant movement. Art critic Seong-Ho Kim reads his series of attempts as ‘the aesthetics of transition
that realizes a random plot.’ This is the artist’s intention of ‘random acts’ along with the ‘technique of non-techniques’ underlying Korean
aesthetic consciousness. This means that the elements of necessity that are naturally attached to the accidental are added to some extent,
and the Buddhist world view of dependent origination is intertwined between the two. Therefore, his works of art are ultimately the non-
difference of creation and extinction, fullness and emptiness, and are in one and the same network of meaning. This network is nothing
but the tangled path of our lives, and within it we communicate with each other and live in an ecological environment.
3. The 4th movement <Moon, Wind and Clouds> as a compilation and finale the 1st, 2nd and 3rd movements
What motivated him to create the fourth movement? While talking with me about this, he reminds me of the Italian film, Il Postino
(The Postman) (1994). Big and small waves that make up the beautiful and idyllic island village of Procida (located in the northern part
1) For a detailed discussion on the issue and meaning of ‘chance’ in art, please refer to Chapter 3 (pp. 83-139) of Kwang-Myung Kim, Reflection and Prospects on Art,
Seoul: Hak-Yeon Mun-Hwa-Sa, 2023.
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