“And then, molding it, lacquering it… “Every day is a good day through the whole process.”

by times news cr

Seongpa Sect ‘Seonye Special Exhibition-COSMOS’
Open until the 17th of next month at the Seoul Arts Center

“The whole process of drawing, making pottery, lacquering, and dyeing fabric was a good day for me every day.” (Monk Seongpa, photo)

The ‘Special Exhibition of Zen Art – COSMOS’ by the Buddhist monk of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism (General Secretary Ven. Jinwoo) will be held at the Hangaram Design Museum at the Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-gu, Seoul until the 17th of next month. Jongjeong is the greatest spiritual leader of the Jogye Order. Monk Seongpa, who was inaugurated as the 15th head of the Jogye Order in 2022, has been engaged in various genres of art, including Buddhist art, calligraphy, Korean painting, ceramics, dyeing, and sculpture, for over 40 years. The special exhibition will feature over 120 works encompassing a lifetime of artistic work, including gold tooth sutras, lacquer paintings, and installation works.

The exhibition consists of six sections: Beginning, Flow, Dream, Creation, Trail, and Moon in the Water. In ‘The Beginning’, dark matter and primordial energy, symbolizing the beginning of the universe, were symbolized with lacquer, and in ‘Flux’, fluidity and energy such as water and wind were symbolized with lacquer. In ‘Dream’, the world of dreams unfolding in the unconscious is a mixture of abstraction and figuration, and in ‘Artwork’, ceramics and lacquer are combined to show a unique genre called ‘Silky Art Ceramics’. In ‘Traces’, you can appreciate Buddhist sutras and the abstract lacquer world, and in ‘Moon in the Water’, you can appreciate the process of the materiality of lacquer, leaving the obsession with images, meeting his practice and philosophy and sublimating into a formative language.

“And then, molding it, lacquering it… “Every day is a good day through the whole process.”

Monk Seongpa’s work ‘The Beginning’. Provided by Seoul Arts Center

The first thing you see upon entering the exhibition hall are several black pillars taller than a person. Lacquer is applied to hemp, then when it hardens to a certain degree, it is shaped and hardened by adding lacquer. The black pillar standing in a dark space reminds us of an asteroid wandering alone in outer space or an unknown world before the Earth was born. The Geumni Sagyeong, written in gold on inked black paper, was created by the monk Seongpa when he was in his 40s, and gives a glimpse into the changes his art has undergone.

At a press conference held on the 27th of last month prior to the opening of the exhibition, he said, “There is no separate Tao, but the ordinary mind is the Tao.” He added, “These works are the result of my ordinary mind and are traces of a life that flows like water and walks like the wind blows.” He said.

Monk Seongpa, born in Hapcheon-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do in 1939, received Sami ordination in 1960 and Gujok ordination in 1970 as a gift from Monk Wolha. He served as the abbot of Tongdosa Temple and a senior member of the Jogye Order, and in 2022, he was inaugurated as the head of the Jogye Order, the symbolic supreme leader of the Jogye Order. The exhibition is free.

Reporter Lee Jin-gu [email protected]

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2024-10-06 21:39:47

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