Beauty of Flow, Beauty of Aging There is nothing that does not move in this world. Everything in nature has its own movement. Even things which do not seem to be moving are not absolutely still. Things that do not move at all are not part of nature because anything natural moves and ceaselessly changes. Therefore, nature can characterized as "flow", or continuous movement. A human being, which is a creature of nature, is destined to live according to this flow. Over the last century we have blindly focused on, and worshipped, 'speed' . Only now has everybody started talking about slowness. No matter whether the flow of nature is fast or slow, human beings have come to exist in the flow of nature and will eventually disappear in this flow. This is because our lives are part of the flow of nature, and at the same time the flow is the central attribute of how we live. Suk, Chul-Joo always reflects the flow of nature in his work as he strongly believes that the flow is the true nature of lives. He has longed to paint life more than anything and to try to express the flow of nature in his painting. At first glance his recent works, "The Diary of Everyday Life" series, look like slightly unfocused black and white pictures. The objects he uses, trees, flowers, bonzai, walls, rain drops, etc., are not cleary painted on the canvas as static objects, but seem to be flickering as if they are moving slightly. This movement is the flow he tries to express in his paintings. What he really wants to express is the movement of an object in its continuous flow through nature. Suk, Chul-Joo says that he likes this following sentence from "Yang Wha So Rok" written by Kang, Hee-Ahan, a famous Chinese poet. "I like reading with an orchid pot on my desk and the lamp on in early spring. The small movement of the shadow of the orchid leaves reflected on the wall is quite enjoyable and that stops me from falling asleep while reading." Kang, Hee-Ahan felt complete happiness from the quiet and small movement of orchid leaves because he believed that this movement told the true nature of our world better than anything else. Therefore, he said that the shadow of the movement would free him from drowsiness and other scattered earthly thoughts. Suk, Chul-Joo's philosophy of art is consistent with Kang, Hee-Ahan's. He interprets his object with the same point of view as Kang and expresses the repetitive shadowy movements of the objects on his canvas. Through these flickering shadows created by repetitive movement, he shows that the world is moving and that also we are moving with the flow of the movement of the world. Suk, Chul-Joo's paintings remind us of unfocused pictures. However, even a snapshot of the static image of an object does not show an absolutely static image because even a snapshot taken at the speed of 1/1,000 second includes the movement flows that occurred in that brief moment of time. As light can travel approximately 300 km in a 1/1,000 second time frame, nobody could argue that the picture does not capture the movement of nature. A picture of a clear static image is only an accumulation of unclear magnified particles. Therefore, the world is a set of an eternal flows and these flows never stop. When this fact is considered, we can see how wise our ancestors were in that they neither preferred an artificially exaggerated or an authoritative sense of beauty. Ostentatiously decorated buildings or structures tend to be created with the intention to hold time or the flow of the nature. In other words, they reflect our vain efforts to try to hold the eternal flow of nature by establishing the limited capability of human beings. On the other hand, our ancestors knew how vain and empty their efforts would be. They always pursued nature-oriented beauty, which is simple but elegant, such as the beauty created by the quiet and small movements of the shadow of orchid leaves. This is related to the controlled and persistent character of the Korean people. Suk, Chul-Joo calls this aesthetic sense the 'Beauty of ageing' and compares it to the taste of traditional Korean food. Traditional Korean vegetable pastes and Kimchi, although they appear to remain the same, develop their own deep taste through the ageing and fermentation process. This sense of ageing is deeply embedded in both our sense of beauty and sense of taste. The beauty of aging occurs slowly and that makes us feel the ceaseless movement and flow of the nature. Furthermore, this experience provides the Korean people with the wisdom to wait patiently for nature to show its true self, rather than to develop artificial forms of nature. Suk, Chul-Joo does not emphasize with a dominant role for an artist in his work process. Rather. his work process reflects respect for the role of the nature. He paints the background with white or black first. When this dries, he paints a contrasted colour on top as the second background colour. And then, before this second background colour dries, he paints an object with a brush and plain water. After finishing painting the object, he swiftly traces the painted object with repetitive dry brush strokes. Through the interaction of water and dry brush strokes a dim image of a white or black object is created. It is the painter himself who causes the basic formation of an object, but the natural interaction between water and dry brush strokes creates this unexpected effect. He accepts nature and the flow of nature by accepting this unexpected outcome. The true subjects of his work are not the objects themselves, but the natural flow caused by the movement of the objects created by his method. Images, the painter himself, and nature which creates and raises us move together with this flow of nature.
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