Homage to Kim Tschang-yeul

For Kim Tschang-yeul, the "waterdrop" was a world in which he gathered the fear of death and the inescapable wounds and tears he carried within him. In the film The Man Who Paints Water Drops, Kim said of his life, "Painting waterdrops is a way of erasing every memory — of washing away all evil and anxiety with water." For Kim, painting was a way of consoling the souls of the dead, and through his work he transmuted blood, a symbol of death, into the waterdrop, the source of life. Through a repetitive, almost devotional act, he washed away the pain of the era he lived through, and invited viewers who encountered his work to share in that process — a meditation on a life that flows from suffering toward release. For half a century he devoted himself solely to the waterdrop, earning lasting renown as "the waterdrop artist."