How Far Can Language Become a Painting?

Not long ago I went to a BTS concert. Watching the Korean language move across a crowd of thousands, I found myself wondering what language really is.

I think of myself as a citizen of the world, and so I would rather not shut language inside the speech of any one country. Language may be a bridge — the thing that lets different people cross over into one another's hearts.

If that is so, could a painting also be a language?

Painting that speaks without speaking

Minhwa holds our lives and our wishes. Flowers and birds, tigers and books tell their stories without saying a word.

Ink painting speaks with even fewer words. A single stroke, the gradation of the ink, and the empty space left bare carry the feeling.

I have come to think of language as holding not only speech and writing but line and color, music and image, and silence as well. A painting that begins in Korean, yet stands open to the languages of the world.

The moment it passes between us

Perhaps what I want to paint is not simply a painting that shows Korean tradition, but a visual language in which different cultures and different people can meet.

Our words may differ. But feeling beauty, being moved by music, having the heart stirred by a story — these can pass between us. It is that moment of passing between that I want to paint.