Untitled 1970

This ‘Untitled’ painting was made by Yun Hyong-keun, and it seems he was playing with ink or heavily pigmented paint on canvas. It's got this great, almost stained quality, like watercolor but with the seriousness of oil. The black is not really black, it's a deep, absorptive tone, more like a memory of darkness. Look how the paint soaks into the canvas, creating these blurred edges, nothing is really hard-edged and the colors bleed into each other. There's a verticality to it, like Rothko's chapel paintings, but with a more intimate scale and a more handmade feel. I'm drawn to where the black meets the green, creating these ambiguous shapes. It makes me think about the relationship between nature and abstraction, how something so simple can evoke such complex feelings. Maybe Agnes Martin was on his mind, or perhaps he was just listening to the materials, letting them do their thing. It is a conversation and exchange of ideas across time. Ultimately, it's up to us to bring our own meanings to it, isn't it?