Pak, Chan-Sun / Poet

On my way to Seoul to visit Master Kang’s atelier, the sky outside my car window was overcast by dark clouds. I crossed my fingers while thinking to myself, “Please don’t rain” as I finally arrived in Seoul. Whenever I arrive in Seoul, a sudden headache strikes me like I anticipate. Let’s just say it’s a reaction by a country folk who cannot adapt to the city environment quickly. My sensitive headache, however, disappeared the moment I stepped in Kang’s atelier. In the scenery outside Kang’s studio window, the gentle face of Inwang Mountain close to my view while Bukhan Mountain was standing upright with poise in the Northwest scenery of Seoul. The paintings were my remedy. His paintings were like painkillers. I felt liberated in front of his masterpiece of landscapes.
I wrote a commentary about his first exhibition in December of 1995, titled A Search for Roads in the Landscape and Sublimity of Life. For his second exhibition in September of 2000, I wrote a critique titled Kang, Suk-Jean’s Art World Questing for the Origins of Beauty: Roads, Homeland, and Trees. In addition, I wrote Aesthetics of Recurrencesfor his third exhibition in 2004.

“Suk-Jean, how old are you this year?”
“I’m not aware of my age. we approach a new year, what’s the point of getting a year older solely by age?”
“I agree. We age year after year, we should accomplish something that deserves to it, yet….”

He is right about having lived so far by disregarding his age merely accumulated by the fixed calendar. Now we have to turn back to its natural state.
According to Laozi’s Daodejing, “Man follows Earth, Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows Way, and Way follows Nature.” Man places his feet on Earth and lives by eating grains produced from the Earth. As Earth receives sunshine and rain brought down by Heaven, Earth never disobeys Heaven. Heaven models itself on the Way which controls the entire universe, that is, three elements of sky, soil, and man.Way accomplishes the ultimate Nature in pursuit of ‘Being natural’. ‘Being natural’ means the final revelation of transcending the human rationality when the latter reaches the limit, and the revelation means beyond-rationalist open-heartedness. Nature, which is not ‘Let it be’ but ‘Being natural’, is Language in which language is severed, Logic in which logic is severed, and Order is the order of ‘Being natural’ which transcends rationality. Laozi’s concept of Nature differs from what we call nature. It is not the physical natural world as a collection of objects for human experience but the world which exists itself before being meant as the object of human consciousness. This moment Nature necessarily includes the concept of ‘Wu’ now that Wu means ‘manipulating nothing’ excluding any mandates. ‘Wu’ is a kind of way to manage and Nature is a kind of effect in which ‘Wu’ reveals itself. ‘Wu’ prohibits any disintegration resulting from the human-centeredness. It is ‘not manipulating’, transcending conflict and antagonism, and subduing human-centered, conflicting, unbalanced manipulations. The world that reveals itself through ’Wu’ is Nature. Nature is ‘Wu’ in itself. It awakens contemporaries who cause violence towards nature with arrogance and arbitrariness. Particularly, it raises an eyebrow to the Western view of nature based on human-centered world view. Laozi’s main idea that Man follows Earth, Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows Way, and Way follows Nature, connects the essential concepts of Man, Earth, Heaven, Way, and Nature and simultaneously represents logical and elevated relations between Man and Nature.
Here I cite Laozi’s view of Nature due to its close resemblance in Master Kang’s paintings. Humans are represented like a tiny pixel of Nature in his paintings. As an exaggerated expression, humans are like tiny ants in the large realm of Nature. This is the essence of changes in the landscape paintings. His masterpieces show the open world of ‘Being natural.’ This openness reveals any pollutions and natural disasters as they are. Environmental situations have the looks of ‘Being natural’. Recent environmental issues depend upon the manner in which humans are to restore the environment back its original state. It is a strife to recur to the world of ‘Being natural’. Master Kang’s paintings are rooted in these fundamentals.
The appropriate words for his paintings would be landscape, streams, rivers, watery rice paddies, waters, furrows, winds, trees, soil, roads, mountains, homeland, etc. All of these can be epitomized into Nature. These themes have already been referred to in my previous commentaries. I have mentioned the characteristics of his paintings, especially his focus on roads, homeland and trees. Then we can assume without question where his paintings are centered around. Here I quote some passages.
‘The first thing that comes to sight was the typical Korean agricultural scene. The young-rice planted paddies had floating clouds in them with songs of cuckoos soaring high from ridges and furrows of the fields. Soil is seen dimly next to the vegetable patches lined up along the valleys on the slanted hills. Stream in which we caught fish and played until sunset was crystal clear. These are closely linked to his hometown where he was born and raised.’

These rural landscapes are the central themes in his paintings. Even the urban landscapes of other global areas, which sometimes he enjoyed drawing, show that he is a master of landscapes and also an artist of Nature on account of his themes of mountains, fields, and villages and towns with living souls in them. The landscape paintings of nature are the results of his pursuit of actuality in real lives and permanence of Nature. ‘Search for roads in the landscapes’ started during his early works and has been growing vigorously and widely as he held more exhibitions.

‘He who knows the divinity of trees, talks with them while willing to listen, and knows truth and fundamental principles of life. ‘the spiritual energy’, ‘vitality’, and ‘directness’(consistency to turn toward the center of universe) of human nature and ‘eternity’ and ‘fertility’ linked to the concept of immortality, the images of trees are recognized as the origin of life and beauty and the master of destiny. His pursuit and sympathy toward trees are based on these ideas. The wholesome natural beauty in his works, which is condensed to the correspondence with trees, leads us to vitality with its bountiful life forces.’

Together with trees, water is understood. ‘Water is another innovated form of imagination, time, life, rebirth from death, and a symbol of sensual ecstasy.’
Mountains are also part of landscape as a source of local colors and never-ending stories of homeland.

Soil should be noticed in addition to trees, waters, and mountains. Letter for Soil in Chinese is a hieroglyphic taking after the look of a sprout with soil on it (土). Soil stands for life, rebirth and death.‘Born from soil, return to soil’ means both birth and death. Moreover, soil symbolizes homeland and fatherland, nature and origin. Also, soil represents maternity in that it gives birth and nurtures. Soil is in the center according to the oriental philosophy, Yin-Yang Five Substantial Modes, which interprets all phenomena in the universe and human society, and birth and death in accordance with Yin and Yang, and five substances (metal, tree, water, fire and soil). In other words, it sees extinction and longevity, change and transition of five substances. Soil represents the function of earth, center, the yellow, trust, heart-mind, sweetness, status, and cows.

The color of Soil has a yellow hue. The yellow race, gold, the color of stool of healthy men and children, rooms made of yellow mud and clay… Isn’t this also a color which a political party has chosen for their political campaign? Now that he says his favorite color is yellow, principle is clear. The solid color in his masterpieces ‘Our Mountain and River’ and ‘The Nakdong River’is yellow together with blue, showing subtle differences of its density, depth and intensity. Yellow is the color of soil, ripening, and peace. Yellow is the color of gentleness, dignity, and destination.
Yellow is the color of wholesomeness, and the color of Korean sentiments, and the color of the genius artist Lee In-sung as well.

Now let’s go over ‘Roads’. Clearly, he pursues his road of life while drawing the world in which he finds relief.‘It is certain that each of us can have just as much symbolic meanings as we contemplate through the roads in his works. The road is definitely that of hope, bright prospect, and light to open future to us. The road of history and of routes people are due to take. Master Kang is following his road through his inner principle and color. He is an artist of roads.’

In addition to these symbolic meanings of roads, we should not overlook the meanings which come from his career life. cannot but be solemn with the inevitable and irresistible principle that man faces death. My early question of his age in the conversation with Master Kang was that of a being who is destined to death. His age is not subject to the yoke of time and tide but an independent count at his will, furthermore, corresponding to the Nature of ‘Wu.’

The sphere where Master Kang finds at his as an artis this homeland.
‘Homeland is the soil and ideal of his world of beauty, the origin and end alike. To him, homeland is the resource and root of beauty. Homeland provides the shapes and subjects for the art world he aspires to.’ Meanwhile, ‘the return to homeland, which is the ideal world of balancing soil and sky, material and mind, is his ultimate terminal.
Homeland is the destination he always resorts to as his object of beauty, that is to say, his archetype and uterus of beauty.’ In a broad sense, homeland is Nature that we come from, get by and are due to return to. Kang’s works include the place we are due to be at the last moment, not just any place as part of nature. Nature, seen through spiritual mental eyes rather than physical eyes, is as neat and proper as ever. Return to Nature as it is, not to the nature spoiled by humans is no other than eco-friendly, environmental movement. His eco-friendly, nature-friendly works are a strong message to stimulate our awareness.

His art pieces of “the Land I Have Left Behind” through his four exhibitions are composed in Master Kang’s unique artistic styles and techniques, which our world of artists have empathized and approved. this a sign of distinctive quality that has been proven through his steady exhibitions overseas and at home? He has had some consistency in his subjects and materials. This can be seen from the similarities among his works of the same subjects as well as from the outer viewpoint. the similarities, his works overall shows development and maturity, not stagnation, due to the globalism in his works of foreign landscape. It results not only from his genuine attitude towards the world but also from his tenacity and aspiration as an artist-creator. As we have artists who draw only sun and moon, pumpkins, water drops, sky and sea, and so on, it is unfair to him to find obstinacy in his works. His motive is of reflection and search, and strife to return to original self and Nature as ‘Way’. describe Vincent Van Gogh’s works as an exhaustion of soul and drain of mind. This can be assumed from his saying that he was eager to show each grain of barley at its last moment before ripening to burst. This story demonstrate the passion Gogh poured into his work?

According to Nietzsche’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra,’ ‘now that the universe is in the orbital motion, human life also perpetuates its glee and anguish. The wheel of existence recurs forever.’ This idea called eternal recurrence seems to have a lot in common with karma gathering and parting in Buddhism. Into this world in accordance with karma, and then gone when our karma is done. A life by drawing and doing work by this world and finally going back. Above all, his work shows repeatedly where we are to return. Nature is a permanent topic for him.

The title “The Land I Have Left behind: Our Mountains and Rivers” of this exhibition is not a coincidence. The world he aspires is the return to the land he has left behind, the return to the permanently existing, shining star. Return to Nature without manipulation such as mountains and rivers abundant with what Laozi calls the delicate and subtle ‘Way’.

He who is acquainted with the road and well prepared, is full of beauty, confidence, and splendor. His balanced life and natural world dedicated to the feast of beauty are at this moment with us. These are with the garden balsam flowering with red under the hot summer sun and the fragrance of fresh grass in the rural.
August, 2009, at Kwongokje.

Pak Chan-Sun, a poet who has been Kang Suk-Jean’s friend since childhood, writes poems in their homeland Sangju. He retired after years of serving as principal at Sangju High School, and now he is the President of Kyungbuk Branch, Korea Pen Club and also the Chairman of Sangju Branch, Dongwhanara Story Feast Promotion Committee. His anthologies include ‘Building Stone Fence’, ‘Sang-Ju’, ‘The World Let Me Eat Lacquer,’ and ‘On the Way to Donam’, His two essay collections are ‘Realistic Approach to Fantasy’, and ‘Stories of Sangju’, Among his awards are the Soil Literature Award, Kyungbuk Province Culture Award, the First Sangju City Cuture Award, and the Korean Local Literature Award.