Landscapes and “Shan Shui” / An Unexpected Affinity

During a conversation with my friend, the Korean painter Lee Young, I showed her some of the drawings I had made during this period, and her reaction was immediate. In those misty landscapes, suspended between memory and reverie, she recognized an affinity with the Eastern concept of Shan Shui (山水), an expression that can be literally translated as “mountain and water.” I was surprised by her observation, as I was completely unfamiliar with this pictorial tradition. However, the more I delved into its meaning, the more evident it became that there were unexpected resonances between those ancient principles and the way these works had taken shape. In the Chinese pictorial tradition, Shan Shui—literally, “mountain and water”—refers to a conception of landscape that transcends the representation of nature to become a way of thinking. Rather than describing a specific place, the landscape is understood as a space where complementary forces converge: permanence and transformation, matter and void, time and memory.