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.

The Nuit paintings trace back to Événement de la Nuit (1972), the earliest waterdrop painting Kim exhibited, which depicts a lone droplet against a solid black ground. Kim returned to this motif throughout his mature career. This 2019 work is a rare example of one of Kim’s final bodies of work of black Nuit paintings on Korean hanji paper. The diagonal lines in the background evokes the atmospheric intensity of a rainstorm.