Painted Fire (2002)

Choi Min-sik: Jang Seung-up

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jang Seung-up : Genius shows, even in a baby!

• Jang Seung-up : People find in my pictures what they expect. I must get away from that. If I don't, I'll always be their prisoner.

• Jang Seung-up : If you want to paint, first learn how to drink.

• Jang Seung-up : Giving solace through painting, and taking solace in it, is the artist's lot.

• Jang Seung-up : Come here and look. That black stone. Is it moving or not? A humble stone must be alive in a painter's eyes. If a stone is alive, it's dynamic. If it's dead, it's static. You can't paint a dead stone.

• Jang Seung-up : Without a drink and a woman, I can't hold a brush.

• Kim Byung-Moon : They say there is nothing that you cannot paint. Portraits, still lifes, landscapes, anything. Blinded by popularity, haven't you lost your vital energy?

  Jang Seung-up : An old sage once said: 'With each day, deeper renewal.' I want to make progress every day. I won't be entangled in my own nets.

  Kim Byung-Moon : It's good that you're aware of it. In our era, painting espouses realism, whereas your landscapes portray a fantasy world, an exaggerated version of plain reality. Rudimentary echoes of true feelings. Cannot you paint life on this earth in all its pain and harshness?

  Jang Seung-up : The people have nothing to console them. If I can bring them comfort by painting fantasies, I will have been faithful to my calling. A painting is just a painting. It doesn't feature in your Party's manifesto.

• Jang Seung-up : To paint, you need desire. How can I paint without an erection?

• Kim Byung-Moon : That painting we saw was one of yours. Why did you say it's fake?

  Jang Seung-up : I gave it to a friend for his father's birthday, but he used it as a bribe. That makes it a fake.

• Jang Seung-up : The fragrance of letters? The harmony of poetry, prose and painting? If that's what they want. Screw them! If it doesn't have words, it's not painting? Real painting... speaks by itself. No need for words. Only daubers add poems to their work, trying to fool people with their bogus philosophy. Frauds!

• Jang Seung-up : Thank you for the compliment, but I painted those wild geese ten years ago. How could I paint them again? To an artist, repetition is death.

• Jang Seung-up : One stroke is worth ten thousand. Ten thousand strokes in one!

• Jang Seung-up : Life is a drifting cloud. I'll go wherever my feet take me.