III. Memories of Earth and Body

1. Topography of Memory: The Visual Archetype of Furrowed Fields

While the previous chapter examined the internal logic of Nam Tchun-mo’s paintings, this chapter explores the origins of his creative acts through memory and corporeality, departing from the conceptual structure of line and golbeop and extending toward the tactile structure of skin and earth. For Nam, painting is not merely visual representation, but a sensory practice capable of manifesting the memories and sensations of the body, transforming them into a creative language.

Human creative activity embodies traces of specific places and times. In his theory of cultural climatology, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) argued that “place” is more than a physical backdrop for human dispositions and creative activities, also encompassing the spiritual soil that shapes them. Herder claimed that the experience of living in a particular place, adapting to the land and its incumbent lifestyle, is what causes people to form unique characteristics and creative power.[1] This notion was deepened and personalized by Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962), who explained how an individual’s psyche is shaped by the spatial experiences of childhood. In The Poetics of Space, the “poetic space” that Bachelard describes is not simply a reproduction of memory, but a sensory practice that is revived within present acts of creation.[2]

In Nam Tchun-mo’s painting, these two dimensions converge in the form of soil furrows in agricultural fields, which are both a personal memory from the artist’s childhood and a collective memory formed by the rural landscape of Korea. Nam’s childhood experiences of working such fields on the mountain slopes of Yeongyang, North Gyeongsang Province, covering them with vinyl sheeting and watching the sheets blow in the wind and reflect light, became the fount of his art (Plate [MM1] 1). Hence, his paintings are not derived from any art movement or predecessor, but solely from the artist himself. An expansive intuition arose from personal childhood memories, through which sensory experience, transcending any conceptual intentions, was expressed in a pictorial language.

For Nam Tchun-mo, the furrowed fields are not simply a reproduction of natural scenery, but an archetypal memory of imprinted childhood experiences that surface from deep within, translated into a pictorial language:

“The mottled, earthy colors of the soil, and the lingering images of white and black vinyl sheets used for mulching, blowing in the wind and gleaming in the sunlight, remained in my memory. Using hoes and ox carts, we slightly veered to avoid large rocks, and through that process, the furrows naturally took shape. Even though they’re never perfectly uniform, the furrows still look beautiful from a distance, almost like some kind of land art.” (Artist interview, April 2025)

The furrowed fields he saw while helping his father, who worked the land, were stored within a complex of sensory experiences: the rhythm of repeated physical labor, the materiality of the earth, the play of light and shadow, and the cycles of the seasons. Such a milieu encompasses every aspect of life—air, environment, temperature, humidity, wind, etc. Through keen observation, the artist nurtured his memories of the furrows, which eventually took the visual form of his ⊔-shaped units. The memories became the foundation of Nam’s aesthetic sensibility, such that his painting can be understood not as a repetition of imagery, but a translation of place (in the Herderian sense) into a painterly language.

The first traces of these furrowed fields can be seen in the Beam series. In the works of the Beam series from 2014, it seems as if the ridges and furrows of earth made for growing crops, shaped in response to environmental conditions of light and humidity, have been transposed onto the canvas. This is particularly evident in the artist’s use of earthen tones resembling the colors of soil (Fig. 15).

The image of vinyl sheets spread across furrowed fields is directly evoked in Beam 17-112 (2017, Fig. 16). The slightly skewed alignment between the upper and lower halves of the canvas recalls how furrows are gently curved by natural movements to avoid large rocks, while the bent forms of the ⊔-shaped units stand in marked contrast to the precisely straight, rigid, and mechanical lines of Western geometric abstraction or Minimalism. The protruding lines of the units, as viewed head-on from the edge of the canvas, are naturally uneven and crooked, reminiscent of farmland shaped by ox carts, rather than by modern farming machinery.

The image of furrowed fields thus provides a fundamental linear structure, serving as the visual and sensory archetype of the “H-beams” and ⊔-shaped units that recur in Nam Tchun-mo’s paintings. Rather than emerging from Minimalist experimentation, these structural units are actually condensed from childhood landscapes and bodily experiences. As archetypes drawn directly from the artist’s psyche, they mark the pivotal point at which his work expands beyond formal experiment into the realm of art manifested from personal memory and sense of place.

The visualization of memory becomes more explicit in the Spring series, which began in 2017 (Fig. 17). The works in this series are characterized by the repetitious arrangement of ⊔-shaped units, which serve as geometric replications of furrowed fields; by an emphasis on texture and three-dimensionality, achieved by affixing the surface with polycoat; and by the suggestion of fertility and vitality through structures that allow the permeation of light. Thus, in this series, Nam Tchun-mo was not simply recalling or representing memory, but rather structuring and internalizing it within the work itself.

The title Spring invokes the physical act of preparing the land—the beginning of cultivation—when one first touches the soil. In farming, early spring is the time when many preparatory tasks must be performed before planting, such as tilling and leveling the ground, building ridges, laying mulch, and spreading fertilizer. Thus, the act of making a field takes place in spring, before the crops can grow in summer and be harvested in autumn. In Nam Tchun-mo’s Spring series, “spring” spatializes the rhythms and patterns of ridges and furrows, which originate from his own memories of preparing fields for cultivation. Notably, Nam never delegates the repetitious task of adhering the ⊔-shaped units to his works, but insists on doing it himself. Thus, every work is imbued with his bodily actions and labor, the equivalent of creating furrows in a field. In his Spring series, the rhythm and memory of physical sensation is given physical form, with each work becoming a surface condensation of the sensory archetype of furrowed fields.

However, after stylizing and idealizing the furrowed fields of his childhood through repetition in the Spring series, Nam later introduced his From the Earth series, in which he engaged in a more primal practice of dismantling this order of completion, seeking to return to the sensory archetype through the materiality of soil. Presented at his 2023 exhibition From the Earth at Indang Museum in Daegu, this series was an experiment in literal/material translation, wherein he directly cast actual earthen forms into a painterly language (Fig. 18). These works were rooted in the artist’s existential inquiries. During long stays in Köln and Paris for overseas exhibitions, and while confined by the pandemic, Nam Tchun-mo confronted the ultimate question: “Where do I come from?” He eventually realized that his origin and existence were inextricably linked to the earth, which then found its way into his work.

To create these works, Nam used farming tools to level the ground at a closed school in Cheongdo. He covered the ground with cotton cloth, which he then coated with polycoat, preserving the natural ridges and grooves of the soil. Next, he poured dirt onto the polycoat surface and allowed it to harden. Finally, he painted and inscribed lines on this hardened surface, which served as his canvas. Through this unique process, he was able to literally materialize the visual archetype of furrowed fields from his childhood.

Nam Tchun-mo is not the first Korean artist to use soil as a medium. In the postwar era, for example, when many artists were searching for ways to express “Koreanness” through art, Choi Youngrim (1916–1985) used ocher-colored earth and sand to recreate traditional aesthetics and reinterpret Goguryeo tomb murals. Even so, Nam’s approach is distinguished in that it begins from the shock of sensory experience, which precedes such historical imperatives.

Thus, Nam’s From the Earth series is not so much a reflection or reproduction of a certain tradition as it is a personal transference rooted in topophilia, an indelible response to and affection for place, grounded in childhood perceptions. The furrowed fields are not simply rural scenery, but a sensory topography imprinted within the body, the ridges and depressions of land shaped by repetitive labor. The act of smoothing the earth is a way of reconnecting with the land, performed as a type of pictorial ritual, a gesture that re-invokes the origins of painting.

Rather than paintings made with soil, the works of From the Earth are events in which the very ground of painting is drawn into painting itself. Traditionally, the foundation of painting has been the canvas, but the canvas itself is distinct from a painting. By instead making the earth the ground of his painting, Nam Tchun-mo collapses that discrepancy, rematerializing painting’s point of departure. In other words, From the Earth is not made from soil; it is a manifestation of the earth itself. As such, the act of combining his Stroke paintings with From the Earth functions like a painterly autobiography, layering his own origins upon that earth (Fig. 19).

The Spring series and From the Earth series exist within a dialectical cycle in which painting is constructed and then deconstructed around the axis of a single memory. The furrowed fields of his childhood serve as sensory archetypes that animate and engender painting, a source of this rhythmic structure that oscillates between construction and dissolution.

In Nam Tchun-mo’s work, furrowed fields evoke the memory of the body. His artistic practice is not a repetition of images, but the accrual of stratified layers of memory, sensation, and emotion, an artistic realization of what Herder described as humanity’s process of acclimatizing itself to every place on earth. The deeply personal authenticity of these works is evidenced by his persistent use of the materials of polycoat and cotton cloth.

The furrowed fields of Nam’s childhood serve as the common root uniting his seemingly disparate works, which constitute an artistic ontology traversing the five strata of body, memory, matter, construction, and deconstruction. Although landscapes change with the seasons or climate, sometimes even disappearing altogether, their underlying structures and compositions remain unchanged. The furrows in Nam Tchun-mo’s work are not objects to be looked upon, but physical acts of repeatedly constructing a life, and thus a natural manifestation of true “Koreanness.”

 

2. The Language of the Body, Form Through the Body

“Painting is like farming.”

For Nam Tchun-mo, painting is not so much a means of expression as it is an act of survival; the hand that now holds the brush carries the memory of the hand that once held a hoe. If the visual archetype of furrowed fields reflects the memory of what was seen, this chapter explores the memory of what was done—the bodily rhythms shared between farming and painting, which are transferred into acts of art creation.

In Nam Tchun-mo’s painting, repetition is not the act of reproducing the same form. It is a corporeal practice that continually yields different sensations, rhythms, and intensities. It is the trajectory of labor, of working with material, and an ethical act of enduring existence. He embraces painting not as “expression,” but as “construction,” deeply inscribing his own time and body into each work.

The processes of farming can be divided into stages: preparation—plowing and leveling the soil, creating furrows and ridges; mulching—covering the fields with vinyl sheets; and cultivation—sowing seeds and nurturing crops. Likewise, Nam Tchun-mo’s painting process involves various stages: groundwork—preparing the cotton fabric and smoothing the surface; material treatment—applying polycoat to create the ⊔-shaped units; and making forms—attaching the units to the surface or drawing lines to complete the work.

Here, the role of polycoat is particularly important. Instead of being applied as the final step for protecting the work, polycoat becomes the core material that actually forms the ⊔-shaped units. To create these units—the “seeds of form”—the artist applies polycoat as a type of mulching with a new material (Plate 2). Just as vinyl mulching protects crops while providing the basis for growth, polycoat solidifies the units and secures them to the surface. This process demonstrates how the rhythm of farming, imprinted in the artist’s unconscious, permeates his creative practice.

This transference of memory intuitively appears in the charcoal drawings of Nam’s series Spring Beam (2012, Fig. 20), in which black circles are arranged at regular intervals across the surface, evoking the holes punctured in vinyl mulching for planting radishes (Plate 3). Just as in actual farming, where two radish seeds are placed into each hole, the artist creates breathing holes for the painting.

This concept of “breathing holes” is further developed in the Stroke series (Fig. 21). Even in these supposedly two-dimensional works comprised of brushstrokes, Nam Tchun-mo uses canvas or cotton fabric to form collages with irregular surfaces. Rather than a decorative technique for augmenting the texture, this process is simply a reflection of his reality. For him, there is no such thing as a flat surface, for his childhood was spent on rough fields of earth filled with ridges, hollows, and crooked furrows. In his works, the textured ground of the cotton fabric generates physical tension between line and surface. Moreover, the uneven surfaces create tactile channels through which the strokes flow naturally, tracing the subtle creases and protrusions. The lines he draws flow along the folds of the fabric, shifting direction and encountering the physical resistance of the canvas. As a result, he is not merely drawing a line, but embodying the sensation of the stroke itself. This sensation hearkens back to the traditional principle of “yongpil” (用筆, “use of the brush”), while simultaneously revealing his own distinct sensibility of the brushstroke.

This approach reaches its pinnacle in the new works of his From the Earth series, unveiled in 2025, wherein impressions of round strokes spread rhythmically across the entire plane, recreating the experience of looking out over a field sown with seeds (Fig. 23). More than mere shapes, each circular stroke is a potential space where life can sprout.

The “breathing holes” appear in another guise in Nam’s Beam series. As opposed to the mechanical precision and symmetry that generally characterizes grids from Western Minimalism, the spacing between the ⊔-shaped units in these works is irregular, recalling the subtle shifts of furrows formed around stones (Fig. 24). Much more than empty gaps, these spaces are vital components that allow the work to breathe, while also enabling light to filter in and providing a place for the viewers’ gaze to rest. Just like the holes in vinyl mulching, which let the underlying crops breathe, these uneven spaces keep the painting from becoming rigid, allowing it to remain alive and moving.

This surface treatment is akin to the repetitive preparatory acts of vinyl mulching and polycoat application, demonstrating the painterly habitus imprinted with bodily rhythm and memory that runs through Nam Tchun-mo’s entire works.

From a phenomenological perspective, following Merleau-Ponty, these works embody how the memory of experienced space is revealed through bodily acts of creation. Nam Tchun-mo’s repetitive acts, such as the stacking of identical units, are expressions of living perception, realized through the rhythm of sensation and minute tremors of the body.[3] They are the process by which the memory of space experienced through farming is transposed onto the painterly surface, creating unity between body and work.

Ultimately, in Nam Tchun-mo’s painting, repetition is not merely a formal vocabulary. It is a long journey that encompasses the persistence of life, the testimony of the body, and the ethics of sensation, presenting a new horizon of ethical possibility within Korean abstract painting. His paintings are not a picture, but a lived structure, in which each moment of repetition testifies to the artist’s existence.

 

IV. The Structure and Sensation of “井” (“Well”)

1. Creative Transformation of the H-Beam: Structural Essence of ⊔-shaped Units

Transcending two-dimensional works, Nam Tchun-mo’s paintings are constructions formed by lines, with a vital spatiality that combines modular structures with the symbolism of traditional Korean architecture. At the heart of this structure are the ⊔-shaped units (approx. 3 × 3 × 1 cm) that he repetitively assembles and attaches, before applying layers of the polycoat that serves as the framework and sensory unit of the canvas (Plate 4).

The origins of the ⊔-shaped units can be traced back to Nam Tchun-mo’s student days. For his master’s thesis, A Study on the Influence of Mechanical Technology in Contemporary Art, Nam conducted theoretical explorations of Western mechanical aesthetics. He then went to study in Germany, where he directly encountered the integration of art and technology in the birthplace of Bauhaus, which famously espoused that “The ultimate goal of all creative activity is architecture.” Through these studies of Western mechanical aesthetics, he came to realize the imperative task of discovering his own original artistic language.

In this period, Nam became fascinated by the structural purity of the H-beam. An industrial element that achieves maximum strength with minimal material, the H-beam is the most basic and purest structural form in modern architecture (Plate 5). As such, it represents the ideal symbiosis of form and function, irreducible to anything simpler. As the consummate embodiment of the functionalist aesthetics promoted by the Bauhaus, the H-beam was the most rational and efficient structural solution produced by Western industrial civilization.

However, Nam Tchun-mo reconfigured this Western industrial structure within a Korean context by transforming cold steel into warm cotton and polycoat; mechanical rolling into handcrafted repetition; and the architectural component into a painterly unit, ultimately giving rise to his ⊔-shaped units. While preserving the inherent essence of the original structure, he enacted a creative transformation, changing an industrial material into a new medium to generate an entirely different sensory experience. This transposition is perhaps best exemplified by Beam 17-135 (Fig. 25). By applying color only to the protruding parts of the units, he conjured an optical illusion, reminiscent of H-beams stacked at a construction site. Notably, this work stands out within the Beam series, which typically features monochrome surfaces that evoke the visual characteristics of conventional minimalist works (Fig. 26). In the end, Nam Tchun-mo’s ⊔-shaped units represent a unique artistic language born from the encounter between the structural purity of Western modernism and the climate and sensibility of Korea. The repositioning of the H-beam, an icon of Western industrialism, into an Eastern context is the creative outcome of Nam’s entire lifetime of reflection and experience. Upon discovering the irreducible essence of structure, he enveloped it in material warmth, personal sensitivity, and the memory of the hand. In accordance, the ⊔-shaped units became the foundational core of all his subsequent works.

 

2. Spatial Aesthetics of the Hanok: Painterly Transformation of Light and Shadow

While the grids formed by the ⊔-shaped units elicit the outlines of furrowed fields, they also recall the structures of windows in traditional Korean architecture. In particular, Nam Tchun-mo’s works may be understood as a contemporary re-imagining of the geometric order and division of light produced by the latticed windows of a hanok (traditional Korean house). As ever-shifting light and shadow slowly move across the ⊔-shaped units over time, the surface undergoes subtle changes, yielding spatial depth and visual movement even within the confines of a two-dimensional painting.

In traditional Korean architecture, many windows are covered by a “jeongjasal” (“井-shaped frame”), a type of lattice with crossing slats that resemble the Chinese character “井” (Plate 6). Representative examples include the front windows of Muryangsujeon Hall at Buseoksa Temple and Daeungjeon Hall at Sudeoksa Temple. More than mere decorative features, jeongjasal are functional elements that enhance the lighting, ventilation, and structural stability. If jeongjasal windows are installed horizontally without changhoji (Korean traditional paper used to cover doors and windows), they also function as sunshades, allowing cool breezes to pass through while blocking strong sunlight.

Korean latticed windows are distinguished by the unique way in which they are covered with paper. Unlike in China and Japan, where paper is typically applied on the exterior of a window, in Korea, it is applied on the interior. This seemingly subtle discrepancy produces an entirely different spatial experience, with the linear composition and geometric pattern of the lattice being emphasized on the outside, while the planar composition and soft surface of the changhoji paper pervades on the inside.

This papering method gives Korean architecture a unique duality and spatial sensibility. Sunlight filtering gently through the lattice and changhoji paper imbues the interior with a special elegance and pleasant charm. On moonlit nights, the shadows of eaves, flowers, and trees from the courtyard are cast upon the changhoji paper, unfolding like an ink wash painting. Most importantly, the passage of time is directly visualized by the changing thickness and angle of the shadows cast by the lattice onto the paper. The residents physically sense temporal change within a tranquil space, inhabiting a four-dimensional realm in which space and time are integrated.[4] [PM2] Such spatial experiences would have been naturally imprinted in Nam Tchun-mo, who grew up in a traditional hanok.

By assembling his ⊔-shaped units into vertical and horizontal grids on the canvas, Nam generates a structural rhythm akin to jeongjasal windows, inducing a layered interplay of light, shadow, material, and space. As such, he translates the sensory function of jeongjasal into the form of a painting. Regulating the flow of light, his version of jeongjasal serves as a filter of sensation that continuously opens and closes the interior and exterior. Hence, the surface of the painting is transformed from a site of visual presentation into a membrane through which sensation passes.

At the heart of this sensory transformation are the artist’s chosen materials: untreated cotton fabric and polycoat. He prefers to work with plain cotton fabric with an ivory tone, unbleached and undyed, with a slightly rough natural texture. When polycoat is applied, the soft fibers harden into a smooth, firm surface, and the previously opaque cotton fabric becomes translucent or even transparent. Over time, the natural tone of the fabric becomes darker and more yellowish (Fig. 27), just as changhoji paper turns yellow with age, marking the traces of time. Thus, the canvas comes to be perceived as an element of East Asian spatial aesthetics, like a window covered with changhoji paper.

By cutting the ends of the ⊔-shaped units at an angle, thus allowing light to pass between them, Nam Tchun-mo infuses his works with a unique translucence. The irregularly arranged units amplify the rhythm of shadow until the painting is no longer a flat surface that merely reflects light, but a dimensional space that filters, guides, and contains the flow of light. This effect also recalls the vinyl sheets on furrowed fields, the primary archetype of Nam’s art. Inspired by his memories of the sheets fluttering in the wind and glittering in the sunlight, he became determined to capture light within his works, marking a decisive turning point in his artistic development.

Nam’s transformation of traditional Korean architecture reached a new dimension in his From the Lines series, initiated in 2025 (Fig. 28). Employing a collage technique, he used hanji (traditional Korean paper) to create effects strikingly similar to the lattice patterns of jeongjasal windows. The subtle unevenness and overlapping of the collaged pieces creates shadow effects reminiscent of traditional lattice windows, while the distinctive texture of hanji imbues the work with a delicate mix of traditional sentiment and contemporary interpretation. These works mark a new phase in the ongoing evolution of Nam’s materials—from H-beams to ⊔-shaped units (cotton fabric + polycoat) to collages of hanji—preserving the essence of structure while probing new sensory possibilities.

In these spatial installations, vertical arrangements of linear structures evoke the rafters or beams of a hanok, expanding Nam’s two-dimensional investigations into three dimensions (Fig. 29). In particular, forms that slope diagonally downward from the wall to the floor accentuate the power of gravity and the passage of time (Fig. 30). Moving through and around this installation, viewers experience shifting shadows and spatial depth, like light filtering between rafters. The intervals between the linear structures reinterpret the rhythm of light and shadow felt beneath the eaves of a hanok, translating the spatial respiration of traditional architecture into the language of contemporary art.

This encounter between traditional architecture and contemporary art was most clearly manifested in Nam Tchun-mo’s Void series, presented in September 2024 at Nakseonjae, Changdeokgung Palace (Fig. 31). Installed in the maru (open area with a wooden floor) and main floor room of a traditional hanok, the works featured red or blue lines forming the rough shape of the character “井,” painted on a relief collage of cotton fabric. Conversing naturally with the surrounding frames, rafters, and lattice windows, the contemporary works seemed as if they truly belonged within the context of the centuries-old hanok (Fig. 32). With these works, the structural investigations that began with the H-beam fully merged with a distinctly Korean sense of space. In the process, they confirmed that Nam’s visual language is not simply a series of contemporary experiments, but is deeply connected with Korean tradition.

Projecting outward from the canvas, the polycoat grid structures in Nam’s paintings produce delicate variations of light and shadow. As the sun moves, the resulting shadows are continuously lengthened or shortened, creating diverse atmospheres that are simultaneously dynamic and serene. This interplay of light and shadow is enhanced by the reflections on the smooth surface of the polycoat. More than incidental visual effects, the shadows function as active compositional elements, endowing the work with three-dimensionality and temporality. Light reflects along the edges, angles, and interstices of the ⊔-shaped units, giving viewers a perpetually shifting visual encounter that changes with every movement.

The use of light and shadow in Nam Tchun-mo’s works is fundamentally different from conventional shading techniques used in painting. In most paintings, shading is applied in order to add depth and dimension to images on a flat surface. But Nam’s works actively animate light and shadow in real time according to the lighting conditions and the movement of the viewer. Rather than an internal representation within the canvas, he produces a phenomenological effect that responds to external conditions. No longer confined as a flat, static surface, his paintings are living structures with a tactile surface that responds to and transforms with light (Fig. 33). While this relief effect, achieved through Nam’s sensory craftsmanship, may be seen as a strategy to experiment with the expandability of painting, it is not a conscious effort at hybridity or to make paintings that resemble sculpture. Instead, it is the inevitable conclusion of the artist’s painterly contemplations on the nature of line and structure.

Standing before Nam’s works, one is immediately drawn beyond the passive act of seeing a picture into an active encounter of experiencing space, time, and light. More than a plane for viewing, his pictorial surfaces are structural landscapes to be fully sensed and inhabited.

 

3. From 井 to #: Symbolism and Expansion of the Grid

One of the recurring motifs in Nam Tchun-mo’s painting is the grid. Beyond mere formal devices, these grids function as dualistic symbols linking the traditional and contemporary, the personal and social, and sensation and concept, while also providing a figurative foundation that reveals transition points within his visual language. Perhaps most intriguingly, Nam’s grids have a double semiotic meaning, as they can be read as both the Chinese character “井” (jeong, meaning “water well”) and the modern hashtag, “#.”

In East Asian culture, a village well (“井”) was not merely the source of water and the center of communal life. The well symbolized the origin of life, while also functioning as a metaphor for a contemplative space where one could gaze into the depths of the inner self. Thus, in Korean traditional architecture, wells were not just practical structures for collecting water, but spiritual centers that bound communities together (Plate 7). In contrast, the hashtag (#) now signifies the dispersed structure of information networks, taxonomies, and modes of communication in the digital environment. Encapsulating the diffusion of individual utterances among communal networks, the hashtag visualizes the decentered, fluid relationality of contemporary society. By juxtaposing these two signs—the centrality of tradition and the fluidity of the contemporary—via the grid, Nam Tchun-mo transforms paintings from fixed symbols into fields of sensory transference.

In series such as Beam, From the Line, and Void, the grid motif abstracts the traditional spatial concept of the “井.” Compositions ordered by the regularity and axiality of the grid are not merely surface divisions, but psychogeographic forms that embody the order and memory of traditional space within painting. Notably, Nam does not simply draw or paint the grids as flat diagrams or symbols, but physically constructs them from layers of polycoat and cotton, thereby materializing the sensory structure itself.

Within this context, the Void series, begun in 2024, holds special significance. As implied by the title, the works of Void engage directly with emptiness itself, extending Nam’s earlier exploration of the gaps between ⊔-shaped units. For example, Void 0307 features a relatively free and dynamic arrangement of intense red strokes within an open white background, departing from the regimented grid structure (Fig. 34). Each line preserves traces of the brush, variations of the color, and palpable shifts in pressure and speed, particularly at the beginning and end of the stroke. But despite their seemingly loose configuration, these lines still have not completely abandoned the underlying order of the grid, suggesting that the structural sensibility internalized through decades of exploration now manifests naturally without conscious control.

The concept of the “井” explored in these paintings gains further resonance when extended into sculpture and, eventually, spatial installation. In sculptural works mounted on walls, the ⊔-shaped units are given fully three-dimensional forms that cast real shadows. No longer a drawn image, the “井” structure becomes a tangible object, offering viewers a new sensory experience (Fig. 35). These sculptural investigations set the stage for the “井” structure to be expanded into huge installations that transform entire spaces.

This expansion was perhaps most powerfully achieved at Nam Tchun-mo’s 2025 exhibition Experience Pommery #18 – Melodies in the Basement, held at Champagne Pommery in Reims, France. To be specific, the installation took place in Vranken-Pommery Domaine, the underground cellars of the estate, which were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015. Installed within this unique setting—an 18-km manmade cavern dating from the Roman era, which descends 30 meters below ground—Nam’s “井”-shaped structures generated an unparalleled collusion of temporal and spatial depth (Fig. 36). The juxtaposition of a traditional Korean well structure within a 2,000-year-old Roman quarry transcends mere art appreciation, enacting a dialogue between civilizations. The striking experience of looking upward from 30 meters underground recalled the primal sensation of gazing at the sky from the bottom of a well, while the geometric patterns created by the “井” structure imparted an overwhelming sense of soaring toward infinity.

In contrast, the “井” structure installed at Nakseonjae in Changdeokgung Palace offered a completely different experience from the mysterious sense of ascent evoked in the underground caverns of France (Fig. 37). Standing in the yard of a 500-year-old hanok, the “井” structure created a satisfying harmony with the traditional architecture. The curvaceous flow of the tiled roof and the straight geometry of the “井” stood in contrast, yet together, they ineluctably rooted themselves in the space, like a communal well at the heart of a village. Unlike in the subterranean cellars, where the gaze was directed naturally upwards, viewers at Changdeokgung circled and observed the “井” structure at eye level, resulting in an experience akin to the communal gatherings that once took place around village wells. There was additional resonance between the wooden materials of the hanok and the artwork, and between the lattice patterns of the windows and the geometry of the “井” structure, producing a moment in which past and present coexisted in a single space.

In his Spring installations at Indang Museum in 2023, Nam Tchun-mo explored a third dimension of the “井” structure: the possibilities of expansion and network (Fig. 38). Completely liberated from the wall, the free-standing “井” structures seemed to traverse the entire space. Visitors could walk between the works, experiencing the structure of “井” from multiple angles, which infused the static grid with a dynamic energy of growth. As the title suggests, the “井” structure of Spring embodied the seasonal energy of burgeoning life and the elastic energy of expansion.

The installations in these three respective spaces each revealed a different dimension of the “井” structure. In the French underground cellars, the structure evoked a mystical ascent (from earth to sky); at Changdeokgung, it embodied a harmonious center (the meeting of past and present); and at Indang Museum, it unfolded as an expanding network (from the individual to the collective). Beyond site-specific adaptations, these effects were the result of a systematic exploration of the multilayered meanings that the archetypal symbol of “井” can hold in contemporary society. At each installation, the “井” structures functioned as a framework for guiding the viewer’s movement, awakening the senses, and unleashing the energy of the space. In the tradition of golbeop, the structures simultaneously served as both lines and frameworks that sustain and evoke space.

As discussed earlier, the ultimate aim of golbeop is to achieve “giun saengdong” (“spiritual resonance and life’s motion”), the infusion of vitality into space, which resonates with the sensory dynamism pursued through the spatial deconstructions of contemporary art. Thus, Nam Tchun-mo’s “井” installations are crucial examples of how the semiotics of traditional painting can be translated into the material practices of contemporary art, marking a point of intersection between East Asian aesthetics and postmodern spatial sensibilities.

Combining the interiority of Korean tradition with the connectivity of contemporary society, the synchronous structure of “井” and “#” functions as a key compositional device in Nam Tchun-mo’s art, integrating symbolism, sensibility, structure, and temporality. His most recent works from 2024 and 2025—the Void series, From the Lines series, and his installations in France, Changdeokgung, and Indang Museum—demonstrate how his explorations have expanded from two-dimensional planes into space, from the individual to the communal, and from the traditional to the contemporary, revealing both the philosophical depth and aesthetic renewal of his work.

 

V. The Aesthetics of “Yuwi” (有爲) and Karmic Practice

1. The Age of Plastic: Polycoat, the Skin of Survival

Beyond formal explorations, Nam Tchun-mo’s works are the tangible outcome of a way of life and a technique for survival. His entire artistic process—from applying brushstrokes on raw cotton to layering polycoat and allowing it to dry to attaching hundreds of identical units to the surface— embodies the repetition of daily life and the persistence of existence. Such practice is, in itself, performative, an accumulation of sensory labor in which the artist’s body is fully engaged.

Through the course of history, humanity has moved through the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age to the current era, which has often been called the “Plastic Age.” Since 1907, when Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, plastic has become a ubiquitous substance shaping human life and culture. Derived from the Greek word plastikos, meaning “to mold” or “to form,” plastic offers extraordinary variability, allowing it to replace many natural materials, such as stone, bronze, iron, wood, leather, and ivory. Inevitably, plastic also emerged as a primary material for artists. The 2008 special exhibition The Fourth Culture: The Plastic Age 101 at Hanyang University Museum demonstrated how plastic has transcended its function as an industrial and consumer material to become a visual language ideally suited for expressing contemporary aesthetics and sensibilities.

Nam Tchun-mo’s decision to use polycoat as the central material of his painting was likely driven by functional and technical considerations, but the choice invites broader interpretation. For materials are not merely tools, but mediators that shape the artist’s imagination and worldview. Whether intentionally selected or not, polycoat holds many properties—such as its lightness, chemical stability, and excellent transmission of light—that prompt us to reconsider the relationship between the traditional and the contemporary in Korean painting.

In addition to polycoat, Nam Tchun-mo has also worked with other plastic-based materials, including Plexiglas and polyester. His adept use of these materials, accentuating their innate characteristics, is demonstrated by Relation–Line (2001, Fig. 39), from the collection of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. Made from pastel-toned polyester, this work replicates the sensation of gazing into the clear water of a mountain stream. Not incidentally, plastic artworks are also very durable and easy to store, qualities intrinsic to the material.

As is well known, Korean art has long been centered around materials closely related to nature, such as hanji (Korean traditional paper), natural ink and pigments, and wood. In accordance, Nam Tchun-mo initially experimented with natural lacquer (made from tree sap and wax) before switching to polycoat. Like many Dansaekhwa artists, Nam was likely intrigued by the minimalist repetition and performativity associated with the aesthetics of “muwi” (無爲, “nonaction” or “not doing”), as well as by the spiritual connotations of traditional media. Yet rather than devoting himself to such cliché and conventional expressions of “Koreanness,” he instead switched to the non-traditional material of polycoat, through which he realized a sensory and contemporary practice of “yuwi” (有爲, “action”).

Polycoat is an industrial material that was not developed for artistic purposes. But with its layered texture, semi-transparency, and capacity to absorb and transmit light, all of which are accentuated through repeated applications, polycoat has become a medium of sensory translation in the works of Nam Tchun-mo. Through polycoat, he reinterprets the fundamental qualities of traditional paintings—such as the layered density of texture strokes, the compositional and emotional resonance of blank space, and the overall rhythm and cadence—transposing them to a contemporary context while imbuing them with Korean sentiment. Polycoat thus becomes a skin that endures repetition and, simultaneously, a sensory outer covering that accumulates such repetition. For Nam Tchun-mo, polycoat is a painterly skin that inscribes his ethics of survival.

In the discourse on Dansaekhwa, the term “suhaeng” (修行), meaning “discipline” or “asceticism,” is often invoked to describe the artists’ process, usually with reference to Buddhist or Daoist training aimed at mental and spiritual refinement. Notably, however, Nam Tchun-mo prefers to describe his own process with the term “silcheon” (實踐), meaning “practice.” For him, painting is not a form of spiritual training, but the concrete labor of daily life. It is not a path to enlightenment, but a practice for survival.

This practice-centered approach is closely related to the social circumstances of Nam’s generation. For the first-generation Dansaekhwa painters, who lived through the Japanese colonial period and the Korean War, the search for Korean identity and personal enlightenment through spiritual training was an absolute imperative for survival. By contrast, for those born in the 1960s, who grew up during industrialization and rapid economic growth, the immediacy of everyday sensory experience took precedence over grand discourses. Thus, while the first-generation Dansaekhwa painters felt compelled to pursue muwi (nonaction) and spiritual training as a matter of existential urgency, Nam Tchun-mo found his own authenticity in practicing yuwi (action) through the sensibilities of daily life.

Although Nam’s works may not overtly proclaim “Koreanness,” their rhythms of sensation and attitude of sincerity nonetheless form a deeper layer of identity. No longer reduced to the essentialism of materials or nationalist symbols, “Koreanness” acquires a deeper meaning expressed through a mode of living in time, an attitude for organizing the senses, and an artistic practice that embodies sincerity.

Eschewing externalized forms of Korean identity, Nam Tchun-mo’s polycoat-based works instead propose a way of being otherwise within contemporary art through the authenticity of sensation. In so doing, they demonstrate how, after Dansaekhwa, the motif of “tradition” can be reconfigured and renewed through painterly experiments with non-traditional materials.

 

2. Trajectory of the Hand, Painting of Karma: An Artistic Practice that Engraves Existence

Nam Tchun-mo diverges from the de-personalized and concept-driven approaches that characterize so much contemporary art. Revealing themselves as strata accumulated through time and bodily actions, his paintings are physical records of the artist’s daily life and sensory experience. In the Beam series, the ⊔-shaped units, derived from H-beams, are time-based forms, each representing a unit of labor. Thus, the artist’s actions not only alter the material surface, but also inscribe traces of time, transforming the pictorial plane into a structure of sensory temporality.

Notably, Nam insists on personally attaching each and every ⊔-shaped unit to the canvas with adhesive. This repetition does not represent the efficiency of mechanical production, but rather the inefficiency of manual labor and craftsmanship. The process of repeatedly applying polycoat onto raw cotton to “build” structures at regular intervals is slow and arduous, like the work of a craftsperson, carrying within it the compression of time and the density of sensation. Through this sensory labor, he turns the pictorial plane into a testimony of his process of living, and turns the practice of painting into a form of survival.

His painting is a stratigraphy of perception and a cross-section of life, wherein the time of the body, the vibrations of emotion, and the ethics of existence are accumulated through repeated labor. In short, it is karma. It is the practice of yuwi (action) carried out for survival, an attitude through which a human being sustains life by means of art, and simultaneously a response to the times.

Nam’s hand is not merely a tool for making forms, but the hand of a practitioner who pervades life, the hand that endures prolonged labor, and the hand that embodies sincere principles of sensory judgment. Rather than artistic gestures aimed at visual expression, Nam Tchun-mo’s repetitive acts of drawing lines, applying polycoat, and building structures are practices of living that record the physical and mental time endured as an artist.

Although Nam artificially arranges his structural units with deliberate order, the process naturally entails many subtle tremors and accidental rhythms. Unlike the yuwi manifested in Western geometric abstract art, with its cold and calculated precision, Nam Tchun-mo’s yuwi is a strategy that contains the sensation of blank space, the rhythm of repetition, and the shimmer of chance. In other words, his work represents a painterly practice in which deliberate action embraces the emergence of chance.

Such repetition functions as a type of pictorial karma. At every moment, the present act is inscribed directly on the surface, linking past practices with future developments. No single brushstroke or unit exists in isolation, instead acquiring meaning within a temporal chain. Repetition itself becomes the trace of time and sign of existence (Fig. 40).

Here, karma should be understood not only in the Buddhist sense, as the cyclical link between cause and effect, but also as the system of traces left by repeated action, which constitute existence. Nam Tchun-mo never impulsively sweeps across the pictorial plane. On the contrary, he always works through steady rhythm, arduous repetition, and meticulous adjustment of sensation. In this sense, his art is his labor and practice, as well as an act of bearing his own karma. What matters in Nam Tchun-mo’s painting is not so much what is “drawn,” but how it is “repeated and accumulated.”

Each painting is a materialization of karma: temporality as process, density as action, and traces of the hand made visible on the surface. To the viewer, the act of attaching hundreds or thousands of structural units to the canvas may be seen as a physical form, but to the artist, it represents the time of his practice, his endurance of repetitive tasks, and his process of shaping subjectivity. Through this accumulation of sensation, memory, and fatigue—the core elements of survival—his work transcends formal experimentation to become an existential artistic practice.

Capturing the passage of time and trajectory of action, the traces of the hand in his paintings are nothing short of the rhythm of life. In the Strokes–Beam series, the countless lines that traverse the canvas generate rhythms not from mechanical repetition, but from the accumulation of singular acts. Each line varies from moment to moment in its thickness, density, direction, and speed, along with the weight of the material, bearing the artist’s breath, rhythm, and life trajectory. As such, they embody the repetition, endurance, perseverance, and discipline that form the foundation of a certain attitude toward life. By embedding his paintings of yuwi with daily survival and the persistence of sensation, Nam goes beyond “making art,” instead demonstrating an ethos and orientation toward painting that can only be described as “living art.”

For Nam Tchun-mo, art does not come from the pursuit of grand ideology or formal completion, but from constructive acts situated on the continuum of life and labor. This attitude and practice clearly separates him from the capitalist art market, serving as a possible response to the ontological crisis of contemporary art. Through patience and repetition, his painting keenly refines sensation, ceaselessly intervenes in material and structure, and builds a sensory authenticity all his own.

This approach can also be seen as a contemporary implementation of the East Asian ideal of the “Tao of art,” but through the intentional repetition and accumulation of yuwi (action), rather than as a natural manifestation of muwi (nonaction). Through the practice of yuwi, Nam Tchun-mo transforms paintings into sensory records of life, and art into the rhythm of existence.

Here, karma is not related to religious notions of sin or reincarnation. It is simply the way the artist materializes his being in painting, transmuting the trajectories of his actions into sensory structures on the surface. The repetitiveness and corporeality of Nam Tchun-mo’s painting constitute a contemporary practice of karma, revealing an existential authenticity formed through the unity of life and art.

 

VI. Conclusion

 Nam Tchun-mo’s painting cannot be easily summarized as formal experimentation or confined to the genealogy of any particular abstract style. It is a highly complex and layered artistic practice integrating repetition, structure, materiality, sensation, psychogeography, and attitude.

The recurring elements in his work—lines, grids, and his trademark material of polycoat—function not merely as visual devices, but as key structures that generate sensory rhythm and ontological depth. Here, the “line” exceeds the act of drawing forms to become an autonomous medium that accumulates time and organizes memory, while the “grid” expands into a mental and spatial field infused with tension and order, where the traditional overlaps with the contemporary. Meanwhile, the evolution of his materials—from H-beams to ⊔-shaped units to hanji collage—represents a singular creative journey driven by his devotion to preserve the essence of structure while probing new sensory possibilities.

Interpreting the formal characteristics of Nam Tchun-mo’s painting through core concepts of Eastern ink wash painting theory, particularly “golbeop” and “giun saengdong,” reveals that his practice is not simply an experiment in abstract representation or repetition, but a profound pictorial act involving the intersection of sense and spirit, existence and time, interiority and exteriority. At the same time, through his use of the nontraditional material of polycoat, he reimagines materiality, contemporaneity, and “Koreanness” with an authenticity grounded in sensation. As such, his work poses many compelling propositions for the possibilities and identity of contemporary Korean painting.

Nam’s art resonates with a unique psychogeography and cultural climatology that derives from his personal memories of working the furrowed fields of Yeongyang, North Gyeongsang Province. By sublimating his childhood experiences into a universal visual language where the bodily rhythms of farming and painting converge, he shows how the memory of the body can be transformed into pictorial practice, beyond mere formal exploration.

With his symbolic transposition of the grid structure—from “井” (“well”) to “#” (hashtag)—he suggests how seminal dichotomies such as the traditional and contemporary, and centralized and networked connectivity, can coexist within a single visual language. As confirmed by his recent exhibitions in Changdeokgung Palace and the Pommery in France, this grid structure can operate as a universal compositional principle transcending time and space.

Ultimately, Nam Tchun-mo’s art is the repetition of karma and the practice of survival. As opposed to the performative muwi (inaction) of Dansaekhwa, he realizes an aesthetics of yuwi (action), using painting to manifest acts of survival. His paintings are not static images, but trajectories of action and traces of the hand, living forms that record the rhythm of existence. Thus, he demonstrates art as a way of living and living as a way of art.

From this perspective, Nam Tchun-mo’s pictorial practice may be read as a response to the ontological crisis of contemporary art. Eschewing the institutional logic of the art world and defying assignment to any art-historical movement, he reminds us that art is not merely a commodity or an abstract idea, but a concrete form of life itself.

Realized through an ethical pictorial practice that transcends its era, Nam Tchun-mo’s works embody an extraordinary aesthetics of feeling and existing. He opens a new path for contemporary Korean painting—one that does not remain bound to the formal appropriation of tradition, but that generates contemporary meaning through the authenticity of sensation.

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