Written by Goowon Kang, the Editor-in-Chief of Vergil America, an artist
The artist Bang, Do-young working with the theme of “Order in the land of chaos, A zenist, Visibilty, Existence and eternity, In time, A man standing alone, Song of life (Udumbara), Words that one would have liked to have said buried in language, Where do we go, Existence, Life, Nature-song of life” portrays the happiness and sorrow of the course of a human’s life after birth. Nothingness(無) and mind(心) is what he acquired from repeating and abandoning from the philosophical question of existence, spirit, creation, and demise during his time of suffering and pain from his early childhood disability of lost hearing and the death of his one and only son, the realization of indifference.
The artist Bang’s color is mainly comprised of the five colors of the elements. The five colors interpret the color as the universe and it means that all things are within it. Clearly different from the chromatics of the western world which is seen from the refraction of light, the reason the artist pursues the five colors is because he bases it on the theory of five colors of yin-yang where the power of the yin and yang becomes the sky and the earth and the two powers of the yin-yang created the five elements of wood(木), fire(火), earth(土), metal(金), and water(水). In the five elements, there are five colors and boundaries. Based on the center and all round, yellow stands for center, blue(靑) for east, white(白) for west, red(赤) for south, and black(黑) for north. Yellow belongs in the five elements as earth(土) and it is treated as the most noble color as it is said to be the center of the universe, blue(靑) belongs with wood(木) and was used to represent the color of spring that all things create, the color that defeats demons and blesses. White(白) belongs in metal(金), used to represent truth, life, and, innocence, and red(赤) belongs in fire(火), representing creation and generation, passion and affection, and enthusiasm. Black(黑) belongs in the five elements under water(水), which is thought to be responsible for human wisdom. Thus using the five colors of the elements as a base he uses them as a medium to deliver us a message of hope in our lives.
The form pursues extreme simplicity and repetitiveness. This is interpreted as to imply the meaning of the existent and nonexistent and to imply finding one’s true self in indifference by combining the concrete and the abstract on one canvas. Also the canvas’ texture is based on intrusions and protrusions which are engraving and embossing. This gathers the thorough principle of the creation of the universe in the ideological basis of yin and yang and to show the faithfulness of life through the five elements. The piece “Life-existence” is reminiscent of Buddhist monks having a meal, at the same time giving the idea that a country, in the relationship between nature and society, ontological insight and existence precedes the essence.
“Song of life A-01~05” is an abstract piece of work comprised of pure design principles of dots, color, circles and surfaces. Seeing that he excluded shapes, his interest, through the stimulation and absorption of his deeper layers, leads to the world of meaninglessness and nothingness. The duplication and arrangement of colored dots emerges as a diverse type of the universe that conceives life and is destroyed, and it is felt as the resonance of a string. It unifies with “What is existent does not exist and what exists is non-existent (色卽是空 空卽是色),” in the Diamond Sutra, which means visible matter is invisible energy and invisible energy comes from visible matter.
Udambara, in “Song of life Udambara” is a flower written in Buddhist scripture as a flower that blooms every 3000 years. Thus Udambara is said to represent Buddha and is accepted as an extraordinary omen. It is also compared to a very rare happening. Life is an honorable and majestic thing. It is thankful and pleasing to see the artist Bang’s deep inner side and complications through the canvas that carefully retains, like a farmer’s seeds, the combination of color, dots, and extremely simplified shapes as if imprinting that all of the beauty of life in Mother Nature and the universe is an accumulation of long time and the reincarnation of Buddha.
