CreatripTeam

A retrospective at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul explores why painter Kim Chang-yeol (1929–2021) devoted his career to painting water drops. The show traces his artistic evolution from raw, ritualistic informal abstracts reflecting wartime trauma and loss (including experiences during the Korean War and the Jeju 4·3 Incident) through geometric experiments in New York to the luminous water-drop motif crystallized in Paris. Kim said the drops grew from scars—many schoolmates died in the 6·25 War—and the form became a personal symbol of wound-suture and existential healing. The exhibition includes about 120 works, with previously unseen pieces from 1967 and two 1971 water-drop paintings revealed for the first time; it runs through Dec. 21. (Jeju 4·3 Incident: 1947–54 suppression on Jeju Island resulting in many civilian deaths)