The Time of Quarks #138

The Time of Quarks
Artist's Statement
Choi Jaeran
According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the "quark" is the constituent of the protons and neutrons of the atomic nucleus and the most fundamental particle making up the universe. The Time of Quarks is a body of work that, by borrowing the concept of time from physics, contemplates the time we experience and feel each moment of our daily lives but cannot see. I gather and collect natural objects encountered on my walks — fallen petals, fruits, small seeds, and so on — and after composing them in a still-life arrangement, I drew the invisible time of the universe symbolically, attempting to give form to the directionality of time.

From long ago, human beings have reflected on the source of life and the principles of living through nature, and have tried to live humbly, in submission to nature's cycles. This series brought human birth-aging-illness-death (生老病死) to mind through the image of nature withering and disappearing; I arranged the gathered objects while imagining the night sky and the time of an infinite universe, and over them I drew constellations, the cosmos, time as conceived in physics, and traditional patterns.

The working method is at once very everyday and ritualistic. Each day I walk, observe, and gather natural objects, and then on a black ground, imagining the universe, I hang withered natural objects with wire, attach seeds and fruits, and pin down things that are perishing — recombining them and rendering the essence of nature as still life. Over the still life I then symbolically draw constellations, the cosmos, time as understood in physics, and traditional patterns. In ancient times the stars symbolized the birth or death of great figures, or hinted at the afterlife, and the movements of the stars were indicators of seasons and the flow of time. Hoping that the still lifes I have composed might become stars within my own universe, I drew constellations into them. Likewise, prehistoric rock paintings carry the cosmology, faith, and ritual practices of the people of that age, and the chilbo ("seven treasures") motif among Korean traditional patterns is a symbolic figure praying for auspiciousness, longevity, and blessing, widely used on ceramics, garments, and ornaments. By borrowing and reinterpreting these ancient symbols and traditional patterns, granting the flow and continuity of time, I have tried to express a yearning for eternity.

The Time of Quarks, through still-life compositions in which life and death exist simultaneously, becomes a metaphor for the truth that all beings live within a finite temporality. By performing the still-life composition and the drawing as a ritual, the work carries a mourning for vanishing existence and an earnest wish that it may shine forever within my universe. In the end, we are all beings who live through finite time. Born on Earth — a small dot in the vast universe — and moving in a single direction, where are we heading? I would like this question to become a moment in which we think about our own existence and the meaning of life.

As a follow-up, I am planning the series The Time of Quarks: Sea. Centered on small fragments worn down by the long action of the waves, I will try, through still-life composition and drawing, to unfold the directionality of time from yet another angle.