Kim Tschang-Yeul first began painting waterdrops in the early 1970s, after he moved to Paris from New York. For the artist, a practicing Taoist, the waterdrops embody the Eastern philosophical idea of “full emptiness”, and reflect the human condition of being at once wonderful and ordinary, vulnerable and adaptable. By suspending time and gravity, Kim asks viewers to celebrate the briefness of water, as well as their own mortality. Kim’s painting practice is also directly related to the traumas of his youth. Born in Maengsan, South Pyogan, in what is now North Korea, Kim witnessed Japanese occupation, the rise of communism, and suppression of free speech during his coming of age. His long term dedication to the humble water droplet is a kind of meditative repetition -- a means to work through his own painful memories. Through finding beauty in austerity and clarity in simplicity, Kim strives to eliminate ‘ego’ in order to attain true peace.

Painted in 1984, Gouttes d’eau reflects Kim’s growing experimentation with materials, surface treatments, and composition during the 1980s. The canvas is divided into a grid that recalls the Thousand Character Classic, with scattered waterdrops juxtaposed against oil stains that evoke the traces left by water. The interplay between diffuse stains, sharply rendered droplets, and the structured grid anchoring the canvas lends the composition a heightened sense of materiality, expanding the formal possibilities of Kim’s signature motif.