The Time of Quarks #135

The Time of Quarks
Artist's Statement
Choi Jae-ran
According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the "quark" is a constituent of the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei, and the most fundamental particle that makes up the universe. <The Time of Quarks> is a work that contemplates the unseen time we experience and feel at every moment in everyday life, by borrowing the concept of time from physics. I gather and collect natural objects encountered on walks — fallen petals, fruits, small seeds — arrange them as a still life, and then symbolically draw the unseen time of the universe over them, trying to express the directionality of time.

From long ago, human beings have reflected on the source of life and the principles of living through nature, striving to live humbly in accordance with nature's cycles. In this work, the figure of nature withering and disappearing recalls the human cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death; I arrange the gathered objects while imagining the night sky and the infinite time of the cosmos, and over them I draw constellations, the universe, time as conceived in physics, and traditional patterns.

The working method is at once everyday and ritualistic. Each day I walk, observe, and collect natural objects; against a black ground, imagining the universe, I hang withered things by wire, attach seeds and fruits, fix the fading with pins, and recombine them, expressing the essence of nature as a still life. Then over the still life I draw, in symbolic form, constellations, the universe, time as conceived in physics, and traditional patterns. In ancient times stars were taken to symbolize the birth or death of great figures, or to suggest the world to come, and the movements of the stars were markers of the passing of seasons and time. I drew constellations into the work with the wish that the still lifes I had composed might become stars within my own universe. Prehistoric rock paintings, too, hold the cosmology, faith, and ritual practices of those who made them, and the "chilbo" (seven-treasures) pattern, one of Korea's traditional motifs, is a symbolic pattern wishing for good fortune, longevity, and blessings, widely used on ceramics, garments, and ornaments. By borrowing and reinterpreting these ancient symbols and traditional patterns, I tried to lend continuity and the flow of time to the work, and to express a longing for the eternal.

<The Time of Quarks>, through its still-life compositions in which life and death are present at once, is a metaphor for the truth that all beings live within finite time. By performing the still-life arrangement and the act of drawing as if they were a ritual, I have tried to hold a mourning for vanishing beings, and an earnest wish that they might shine forever in my own universe. In the end we are all beings who live a finite span of time. Born on Earth — a small dot in the vast universe — and moving in one direction, where are we going? I hope this question becomes a moment to reflect on my own existence and on the meaning of life.

Next I am planning a follow-up series, <The Time of Quarks: Sea>. It will unfold the directionality of time from a different angle, centered on small fragments worn down by long years of waves, through still-life composition and drawing.