Quest for Inner Peace in Postwar Korea

Born in 1931, Park Jae-hong witnessed the end of Japanese colonial rule in Korea as a teenager. Yet, soon after Koreaʼs celebration of independence in 1945, Park awakened to a war-torn reality marked by the division of his home country, where he was forcibly conscripted into both the North and South Korean armies. Amid war and turmoil, Park, whose artistic inclination was evident from a young age, completed his degree in the Department of Painting at Hongik University. In 1955, to evade conscription again by the Rhee Syng-man government after a two-year ceasefire, Park fled before his graduation ceremony. He then changed his name to Park Seo-bo, to continue his journey as an artist.

Park had his fair share of misfortunes growing up in this turbulent period. As an artist and wanted fugitive, he formed his family in poverty. He lost his teaching post at Hongik University due to a factional struggle. All of this, however, only strengthened Parkʼs resolve. Since 1957, Park has been among the pioneering Korean artists who promulgated the artistic approaches of Art Informel. This style emerged in post-war Western Europe, advocating self-expression and highlighting media and materials. With sweeping abstractions, Park portrayed his traumas and fears brought on by gunfire and his deep-seated feelings of fury and bitterness. In 1961, he stayed in France for roughly a year. The trip offered Park an excellent window to study the aesthetics of abstraction closely. Moreover, it fuelled his drive for artistic breakthroughs when he returned to South Korea. During this period, something Park’s son did brought him inspiration.

One day in 1967, his second son, who was learning to write at three years old, was trying to neatly fit his Korean characters within the lines of a squared piece of paper—already worn due to heavy erasing—but in vain. Upset, he ignored the gridlines and scribbled all over the sheet. Park, seeing his son make these repetitive scribbles, which helped vent his frustration, immediately realised that rather than amplifying his emotions, what he needed was to let go and release them.^[1]

Eventually, Park turned his back on the fierce, expansive style of his earlier years to take a more subtle, introspective approach. That same year, he developed his signature Écriture series, also titled Myobop in Korean. After secretly exploring the style for five years, the series was revealed to the public in 1973, when Park felt his technique had reached a level of maturity. Écriture No. 10–72 in the M+ Collection is an early work Park completed during this five-year study.

Myobop is a Korean word that refers to ways of drawing, whereas the term écriture is a French word that has several meanings: the act of writing, text, handwriting, or in a religious sense, scripture. Rather than pointing to specific interpretations, images, or forms,^[2] Park deconstructs the act of painting and writing in his Écriture series. Parkʼs experience in France might have inspired his selection of the French title, while some readings suggest that it hints at the contextual nuances when translating artistic languages with different geographical and cultural valances.

Park’s practice involves using a pencil to repeatedly incise wavy lines into a surface still wet with whitish paint, epitomising the ebb and flow of the drawing process. Neutral tones of white, black, and grey hark back to the smoke-blackened white wall of his former home. The simple, repetitive strokes and the soft sheen of pencil and oil paint bring out the tension between the materials. Focused on the traditional medium of painting, the work spurs viewers to pay attention to the materiality and texture of the surface, resulting from the incessant act of drawing and compositional process. What follows, amazingly, is a kind of spiritual decluttering.

Before creating this work, Park had taken an interest in Taoist and Buddhist philosophy looking to develop his own artistic philosophy. In an interview, he recalled how he once consulted a Buddhist nun on becoming an artist. She suggested Park chant his name repeatedly for self-reflection and enlightenment. Inspired by his second son, Park views working on the Écriture series as a self-cultivating process. Focusing intensely on the pencil tip, the disciplined artist upholds the conviction of muwi, the Taoist principle of effortless action, to contemplate nature at the point of horizontal unity^[3], and allows for the natural deviation and variation of lines and colours.^[4] Through constructing a compact and intertwining composition, he rids himself of complex emotions and transcends worries and desires, entering a realm of pure equanimity where unity between self, the act of painting, the work, and affective space may be reached. This is what Dansaekhwa, or monochrome painting, essentially is.

Park has been widely regarded as one of the pioneers of Dansaekhwa—a South Korean art movement whose rise was influenced by the Abstract Expressionism movement flourishing overseas. Dansaekhwa differs from the western monochrome painting practice, which seeks to eliminate the conventional heavy use of visual elements. Nor does it resemble Minimalism’s essence in dissolving the need to interpret emotions and feelings, but many people often associate Dansaekhwa with Minimalism.

For Park, Dansaekhwa starts with the accumulation of colour tones and layers, through which introspection is made possible and excess energy can be channelled off. In this way, the outward act and the inner frame of mind can be a far cry from one another. This may explain why instead of calling it Korean monochrome painting, a Korean transliteration of Dansaekhwa works better. What these monochrome paintings convey extends far beyond their monochromatic palette.

As this style of art gradually prevailed, Park comforted viewers by projecting in post-war Korea an objective inner sanctum devoid of external interference, enabling the artist himself and viewers to sort out their thoughts and liberate themselves from their relentless inward outcry. Today, as we leap into Parkʼs infinite looping lines from another era, we might still find resonance within these entanglements, along with a bridge leading to nothingness, a space to let go of excess and for our hearts to embrace the future comings and goings in life.