Heralded as one of the pioneers of the Korean Monochrome painting movement (known as Dansaekhwa), Park Seo-Bo (1931–2023) was one of Korea’s most significant early modernists. In the 1950s he was one of the first to introduce abstraction into what was then a very conservative art world in Korea. Park’s steadfast commitment to pushing boundaries and embracing new vocabularies of expression has consistently resulted in new and influential bodies of work widely acclaimed both in Korea and abroad.

Ecriture No. 021023 belongs to Park Seo-Bo’s hallmark Ecriture series, which he first began developing in 1967. Ecriture began as a series of monochromes in which Park covered his canvas with a single color and manipulated the still-wet surface with repetitive, carving gestures—actions that resemble the writing of a script. While in earlier works he used a pencil or stylus to create these repetitive marks, beginning in the 1980s he introduced hanji paper into the series, layering and scraping the pulp on the wet surface to create a unique sequence of sculptural lines that seem to float on top of the canvas. The resulting relief paintings stimulate the viewer’s proprioception, an optic experience art historian Alexandra Munroe has characterized as “ecstatic minimalism.”