Three years had flowed away

before I sought Youngseol,

the painter Seo Sang-Hwan in Busan,

my old companion upon the road of beauty.

Before,

I found him in his gallery,

surrounded by canvases breathing,

by books stacked like seasons of prayer,

and there my longing rested.

Today

I walked instead toward his home.

No—

I walked toward time itself.

Ah!

How strange the heart becomes

before departure.

As I prepared to leave Korea,

something within me refused farewell,

pulling me,

on an ordinary weekend,

toward his door—

His gracious wife welcomed us.

Once

there were four of us

sharing laughter around one table.

Long before that,

only two—

the painter

and myself—

young enough to believe

the road stretched forever.

Now he sits

like the shadow heaven casts

upon an aging earth.

He says,

“Art is born in the field of living,

searching for the form of the Heaven.”

Yes—

I remember.

From the Via Dolorosa,

where his woodcuts first learned

the grain of suffering,

to these luminous holy icons

where light itself

finds its opposite

only to embrace it—

his entire life

has been one endless pilgrimage

toward the Face of God.

Painting.

Painting again.

Painting until breath disappears,

until consciousness falls away,

until only the hand remains,

moving—

as though guided

by another Breath.

O language beyond human language!

O speech belonging to God alone!

O mysterious spring

beneath consciousness itself,

where mountains dissolve into nature

and nature awakens again

inside the searching soul!

There walks the pilgrim,

forever pursuing

the form hidden within creation.

His joy

is never possession.

It is possibility.

He paints,

not God Himself,

but the shadow

God leaves upon the world.

Life itself

is beauty.

Beauty itself

is the stubborn labor

of becoming the self

created in God’s own longing.

How fiercely he has struggled

to resemble only the Holy One!

Truth.

Life.

Beauty.

The self.

Not four separate words—

one body,

one mystery,

revealed across

more than half a century

of faithful paint

upon waiting canvas.

His work has become

transparent devotion,

reverence made visible,

silence clothed with color.

Who among us

can truly follow

such a seeker?

Who can endure

such holy hunger?

Youngseol—暎雪

approaching ninety years

beneath these Korean skies—

one day

the Breath that first awakened him

will call him home.

He will leave us

without noise,

like evening light

slipping beyond the mountain.

Yet he shall not disappear.

His countless sacred images,

his paintings

whose beauty chills the soul

with longing,

their deep contemplative stillness,

their marriage

of painting color

and eternal light—

these will continue breathing.

The Creator’s own breath

will remain within them.

And whenever we stand

before one of his canvases,

we shall discover

that the old pilgrim

has not gone at all.

He has become

another breath

within our own.

— TaeHun Yoon, 6/27/2026

* The overall shape is composed of the bell at the top symbolizing “good news,” the fish on the left and right representing fellowship, and the praying person at the very bottom. When viewed as a whole, it forms the shape of a cross.

This is the explanation given by Youngseol about the necklace he personally made and has worn throughout his life.