Yeobaek (여백)

The Korean artistic principle of yeobaek is most frequently observed in visual art. It involves the intentional integration of the surface’s blank texture into the artwork itself. Imagine a scroll painting of a mountain scene, in which the fabric of the scroll represents the sky and clouds. Leaving these areas unpainted blurs the line between the artistic medium and the finished piece.

In composing this piece, I’ve aimed to translate the principle of yeobaek into a musical context. Just as a painter uses a canvas, a musician “paints” sound onto a canvas of silence. And so Yeobaek begins by highlighting this “negative space.” At the start, powerful, resonant musical gestures dissolve into silence. As the piece develops, these initial silences are progressively filled with more sound, making the texture increasingly active. By the climactic moment of the piece, the profound silence prominent at the start remains only as a faint suggestion.