"My paintings are the residue of asceticism" – The confession of a master who fought with the canvas for 14 hours a day for 50 years

Art is not a display of flamboyant technique. While for some, art might be colorful brushstrokes filling a canvas, for Park Seo-Bo, a master of South Korean contemporary art and a pioneer of Dansaekhwa, art held a completely different meaning. He states resolutely, "Art is not about manual dexterity." To him, a painting was not a result intended to show something, but the trace of a painful process of refining oneself.

The beginning of art found in a 3-year-old son's 'resigned scribbles'

The background of the birth of Park Seo-Bo's representative 'Ecriture' series unexpectedly lies in an ordinary moment of family life. According to an EBS documentary video, his artistic inspiration began from an action shown by his second son around the age of three. When the child, trying to write letters within the grid of a notebook, found it wasn't working as intended, he became angry and simply drew lines with a pencil.

Witnessing that scene, Park Seo-Bo read 'resignation' from it. An attitude of accepting a situation that does not go as planned and emptying oneself, rather than struggling to achieve something. He took this emotion of 'resignation' as the core of his art. Instead of striving to show off technique, it was a process of letting go of oneself through repetitive actions. He defined this as a "tool for performing asceticism." This is the reason why he says the paintings he leaves behind are "merely the residue left from the process of asceticism."

14 hours of solitary asceticism a day, "a tool to heal the world"

His artistic process was by no means merely a romantic one. From his 20s until 2009, he wrestled with the canvas for 14 hours a day for a long period of 50 years. Even in lonely times when others did not recognize him, he silently continued his work. For instance, from 1982, he continued working with Hanji alone every night for 4 to 5 years; he regarded art as a process of 'self-cultivation' to complete one's character.

The ultimate purpose of why he sought to empty himself so fiercely was in the 'healing of the world.' He diagnosed that modern society, due to stress and visual violence, would result in "the entire Earth becoming a hospital ward." He wanted to create a sanctuary that could soothe the exhausted minds of people. Therefore, he brought the colors of nature in as a tool for healing. In front of works made by mixing sky blue and sea blue and adding white, he would take deep breaths and commune with nature.

Park Seo-Bo believed that art must reflect the era. He believed that as the world changes, the artist must change along with it. He emphasized that an attitude of doing one's best even in a fleeting moment is the foundation of art, saying, "Just as not everyone knows the mineral veins flowing beneath the ground, there are infinite possibilities." To him, art was not a technique coming from the fingertips, but the very attitude of facing life itself.