Kim Tschang-Yeul

The work

Recurrence
2008
162 x 130 cm
Acrylic and oil on canvas

The work, Recurrence, Insistent Repetition, is an example of the theme that occupied Kim Tschang-Yeul’s work from 1970 until the end of his life in 2021: the drop of water.
If we pause to look closely at the painting, we can see three motifs superimposed like layers. Each one represents a period in his life. In the background, oriental calligraphy, above it, the abstract expressionism that fascinated him when he immigrated to the United States. In the foreground, water drops fall diagonally from right to left.

The artist

(Maing San, North Korea, 1929 – Seoul, South Korea, 2021)

Kim Tschang-Yeul (1929–2021) is one of the most internationally recognized Korean artists, especially for his unique painting of water drops. His work can be understood as a poetic and philosophical synthesis between Western abstraction and Eastern spiritual and calligraphic traditions.
The water drop: a central and obsessive motif. From the 1970s onward, Kim devoted himself almost exclusively to depicting hyperrealistic water drops on paper, fabric, or surfaces with Chinese characters. These drops are not mere representations of nature, but symbols of meditation, ephemeral, fragile, and at the same time powerful. A way of clearing the self, a spiritual and artistic practice at the same time.
His painting is deeply imbued with Zen and Taoist thought. The drop can be understood as a metaphor for impermanence, emptiness, purity, and the present moment. There is also a dimension of self-knowledge and liberation: painting a drop is, for him, an act of emotional purification. He lived and worked in Paris for a long time, and was influenced by Western movements such as hyperrealism, lyrical abstraction, and conceptual art. But he never renounced his Korean heritage: calligraphy, Confucianism, natural symbolism, and Eastern minimalism. This fusion gives rise to a unique, hybrid body of work with an identity marked by the tension between presence and absence, figure and ground, action and contemplation.


The repetition of the same motif (the drop) over decades is not monotony, but a ritual act. This reiteration—recurrence—connects with the aesthetics of meditation, art as a spiritual discipline, and a nonlinear conception of time.
Kim plays with visual perception: his drops appear real, wet, three-dimensional, but they are only paint. This visual deception serves to awaken the viewer’s consciousness: it forces them to stop, observe, and enter a space of contemplation.