Sculptor Choi Jong-tae

Thanks to my second brother's fondness for collecting mysterious natural stones and ceramics, I was able to meet the potter Lee Jong-soo (1935-2008), who later designed the cover illustrations for my first collection of poems, together with the Buddhist poet Park Hui-sun (1923-1998) who wrote the book's introduction published in 1990.

I met the sculptor Choi Jong-tae at the time I edited his book titled "Living & Drawing," a black and white collection of 35 essays with 60 works of art, published by Pauline in 2011. In his essays, he aspired to be free and find his place of enlightenment.

While talking with him, I found out that he was a friend of the late Lee Jong-soo who left his teaching position at Ewha Woman's University to build his own kiln to create marvelous ceramics.

From time to time I would visit him with my sister ― herself an artist ― to chat. It was through our meetings, I happened to encounter various sculptors such as Kim Chong-yung (1915-1982), Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), Chang Uk-jin (1918-1990); artists like Lee Dong-hun (1903-1984), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Marc Chagall (1887-1985), Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675); poets like Park Yong-rae (1925-1980) and Im Gang-bin (1931-2016). It was very inspiring to be familiar with those creative artists.

When I met the sculptor Choi, I noticed that he was constantly looking for a pure presence like the monk Beop Jeong (1932-2010) and Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan (1992-2009). He truly missed their presence while struggling to be free from the history of the arts and from all kinds of forms that he had pursued throughout his life. Then, he deeply pondered on the meaning of pureness, cleanness, and emptiness of the heart where God resides.

"What is beauty? What is form?" Constantly pondering and asking himself, he experienced the inner light shining deep in his heart, and he finally confessed that he became much freer at last at the age of 88.

His spiritual journey, "Choi Jong-tae lived for drawing: an artist's journey of encountering freedom" was released in January 2020 by Gimmyoungsa. It is a retrospective collection of 34 essays written for the past 10 years.

He was born in 1932 in Daejeon and graduated from the sculpture at the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University in 1958. Since then, he has constantly concentrated on drawing and sculpturing the simple image of girl through the faithful and thoughtful accompaniment of his wife. His work is becoming more spiritual and enigmatic nowadays.

In one of his essays, he shared his mysterious experiences as follows: "There was a dark tunnel. The end of the tunnel was not seen. There was only darkness all around. Without knowing, there was a signal on that darkness. It was like 'the seed of joy.' The realistic light was pondering on the inner wall of the bosom. I could feel it with touch. The background of the art is the light, which is the origin of life and the hometown of human beings. The heart of artist yearns for the light. There is the way to eternity. The artist looks around in an alley of that way. He is waiting for the hands of salvation."