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Lot Essay
Magnificent monochrome painting Park Seo-Bo, who is one of the most inspiring leaders of the Dansaekhwa movement, which dominated the local art scene in Korea throughout the 1970s and 1980s, will be featured in the evening sale. The movement has been receiving an increased attention from the global art world in recent years with the recognition that the works are philosophically profound, visually beautiful, and conceptually unique. Following the legacy of Korean abstract pioneers such as Kim Whan-Ki and Rhee Seundja, whose works are also featured in this sale, Écriture No. 91-75 aims to become one with nature, returning to nature through creating meditative monochrome planes.
Écriture No. 91-75 painted in 1975 displays a signature style of Park Seo-Bo, who contributed in establishing the movement through his probe of philosophical themes in the context of abstraction. Through ceaseless experimentations of styles and technical executions, he looks to a dimension beyond visual abstraction, reinterpreting nature as a reflection of his own mind. This work epitomizes the intensity of Park’s attentiveness, presented in tightly repetitive markings in his Écriture series from the 1970s. Tracing his pencil through a thick layer of stillwet paint, the artist carves a sequence of rhythmic, graphic lines, ploughing grooves and furrows into his otherwise blank surface. White paint glimmers in the interstices, punctuating the mottled surface periodically like beams of light. Inspired by instinctive scribbling, Park resumed his noted series of Écriture, Myobup in Korean, in the late 1960s. The series has been continued so far over more than several decades of his artistic career, evolving the profound depth and maturity in different mediums, colours and styles. In Korean, Myobup refers to techniques and methods of depiction associated with the line in ink painting. Park’s dramatic accumulations of lines in the works from his early Écriture series evoke the charm of eastern calligraphy. Joan Kee, a noted scholar for the Dansaekhwa movement stated on Park Seo-Bo, “Different sense of time, past and present, played through Park’s mind as he began to produce the Écriture works, for which he is best known today. Certainly, he remembered the lessons of ink painting well. A remarkable work from 1969 shows a fluidity of line directly inherited from calligraphic traditions.” Eastern calligraphy was thought to reveal the universal life force of ‘Qi ( 氣),’ transmitting the essence of our being, bringing unity between the artist and his true self. Weaving his monologue within the condensed spherical loops of the pencil, Park Seo-Bo reveals his capacity in surpassing the medium by removing himself in every pencil stroke, emptying his soul to marvel within the infinity of the given space, allowing him to enter a transcendental experience.
Écriture No. 91-75 painted in 1975 displays a signature style of Park Seo-Bo, who contributed in establishing the movement through his probe of philosophical themes in the context of abstraction. Through ceaseless experimentations of styles and technical executions, he looks to a dimension beyond visual abstraction, reinterpreting nature as a reflection of his own mind. This work epitomizes the intensity of Park’s attentiveness, presented in tightly repetitive markings in his Écriture series from the 1970s. Tracing his pencil through a thick layer of stillwet paint, the artist carves a sequence of rhythmic, graphic lines, ploughing grooves and furrows into his otherwise blank surface. White paint glimmers in the interstices, punctuating the mottled surface periodically like beams of light. Inspired by instinctive scribbling, Park resumed his noted series of Écriture, Myobup in Korean, in the late 1960s. The series has been continued so far over more than several decades of his artistic career, evolving the profound depth and maturity in different mediums, colours and styles. In Korean, Myobup refers to techniques and methods of depiction associated with the line in ink painting. Park’s dramatic accumulations of lines in the works from his early Écriture series evoke the charm of eastern calligraphy. Joan Kee, a noted scholar for the Dansaekhwa movement stated on Park Seo-Bo, “Different sense of time, past and present, played through Park’s mind as he began to produce the Écriture works, for which he is best known today. Certainly, he remembered the lessons of ink painting well. A remarkable work from 1969 shows a fluidity of line directly inherited from calligraphic traditions.” Eastern calligraphy was thought to reveal the universal life force of ‘Qi ( 氣),’ transmitting the essence of our being, bringing unity between the artist and his true self. Weaving his monologue within the condensed spherical loops of the pencil, Park Seo-Bo reveals his capacity in surpassing the medium by removing himself in every pencil stroke, emptying his soul to marvel within the infinity of the given space, allowing him to enter a transcendental experience.