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| Dansaekhwa master Park Seo-bo / Courtesy of Kukje Gallery |
By Park Han-sol
Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) master Park Seo-bo, who is considered one of the seminal figures in the Korean modern abstract art scene, has been diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer, the artist revealed on Thursday.
"I had been a smoker all my life. It was only after experiencing a heart attack that I quit smoking altogether," the 91-year-old wrote on his Facebook.
"I want to spend the rest of my time more meaningfully by focusing on my creative endeavor," he continued. "I've lived long enough, but there are still things left that I wish to paint … I want to be able to draw at least one more line on canvas."
As one of the founding members of the formative Dansaekhwa movement that emerged in the early 1970s in Korea, Park has been most well-known both here and abroad for his decades-long signature "Ecriture" series.
The series began as "pencil-Ecriture," inspired by his three-year-old son's crude penmanship. Park started imitating his son by applying countless graphite lines to a canvas coated with wet, white paint. Through the work, he emphasized the meditative aspects of art production that come from the purposeless and endless repetition of activity. Later, the sumptuous hues and composition of the landscape ― both natural and man-made ― pushed him to incorporate colors into his canvas, birthing the latest "color-Ecriture" stage.
The artist recently made headlines as the first Korean creator to be part of Louis Vuitton's ArtyCapucines project, in which six leading international creators every year were given free rein to add their designs to the French luxury house's iconic Capucines handbags.
The design of Park's bag, sold as one of the brand's 2022 limited-editions, featured an original 2016 red painting from his "color-Ecriture" series.
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