Van Gogh Reborn!

The Scoundrel (3)

‘Is that how you came?’

I was puzzled.

If you came to the interview, you shouldn’t look shabby, but the young man with a buzz cut didn’t seem to care about impressing others.

His white shirt and paint-stained jeans looked like he had just left his work.

“Baek Seol-gi.”

“Yes.”

“Ma Eun-chan?”

“Yes!”

“Please prepare for the next two.”

Baek Seol-gi took a deep breath after being notified of the next order.

She was bothered by the man who would enter the interview room with her, but it was not the time to spare a glance.

She tried to overcome her nervousness by recalling the contents she had prepared for a few days.

The pressure of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the fear of Choi Kyu-seo, could not break her desire to live as a painter.

On the other hand, Ma Eun-chan was also determined.

‘It’s okay.’

He had ironed the white shirt he hadn’t taken out for a long time, shaved for the first time in a while, and went to the bathhouse as soon as he arrived in Korea to look good to the interviewer.

He didn’t have time to eat a proper pork rice bowl, but he could satisfy his regret with a rice burger.

He was in better condition than ever.

“Baek Seol-gi, Ma Eun-chan. Please come in.”

Baek Seol-gi and Ma Eun-chan bowed their heads and greeted the guide and entered the interview room.

“Hello.”

“Hello!”

Baek Seol-gi smiled and looked into the eyes of the interviewer.

“Nice to meet you. Please sit down.”

The interviewer Bang Tae-ho offered chairs to the two. 𝓯𝙧𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝓫𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝓶

‘I’ve seen him a few times, but I’m still nervous.’

Baek Seol-gi swallowed her saliva.

As she had been active as Choi Kyu-seo’s secretary, she had often participated in big and small events in the art world, and she was acquainted with Bang Tae-ho.

He was the former chief curator of the Learning Art Museum and currently the representative of Chocolatier, founded by Ko Hun and Henri Marso.

He was a person who was widely recognized for his ability in Korea.

It was inevitable that she would be nervous.

“Let’s start with Baek Seol-gi.”

“Yes.”

“You wrote about your study abroad in France on your application. How will that experience affect this exhibition?”

“Since it is an exhibition that both Korea and France participate in, not only language communication but also connection points are needed within the work. I think it will be helpful as I have experienced both countries.”

“What are your strengths, Baek Seol-gi?”

Bang Tae-ho watched carefully how Baek Seol-gi would answer.

It was true that studying abroad in France was somewhat advantageous for the joint exhibition, but there were too many people who had the same conditions.

There was no reason to select him just because he had studied abroad.

“Can I explain it with my work?”

“Of course.”

Baek Seol-gi, who asked for permission, showed the most confident work in her portfolio on the screen.

Bang Tae-ho raised his eyebrows.

The painting titled had red paint raining down on a long horizontal canvas.

He didn’t paint with a brush, but he set up the canvas and induced the paint to drip down.

Behind the red paint, a man and a woman holding hands stood with pale faces.

The faces of the two were lightly painted in dark blue, and there were cracks on their faces, which looked very grotesque.

The man’s chin was loose and the woman’s elbow was deformed.

They were expressed like joint dolls, adding to the gloom with the red paint that rained down and the pale skin.

“I expressed the depression of the French people.”

Bang Tae-ho nodded and listened to Baek Seol-gi’s words.

“The red rain becomes a window bar and gives a sense of isolation, and you can see that the two people have been deprived of their freedom from the blue faces. The reason I didn’t paint the empty background white is to symbolize that they are not equal to others.”

It was a word that used the colors of the French flag.1)

The joints that looked like dolls seemed to show that the French people were not respected as human beings.

Baek Seol-gi showed the next work.

It was titled .

It was a point of view that looked down on the two from above.

The man and woman who faced each other with a bar table in the middle were lying down and looking at each other.2)

They hugged each other at a distance where their lips almost touched but not.

The woman wrapped her left arm around the man’s neck and her right arm around his shoulder.

The man placed his hands on the woman’s hair and waist.

The man’s fingers, stained with grease, and the woman’s fingers, painted with black manicure, looked like a grotesque contrast.

The woman’s blue hair and the man’s red face resembled a yin-yang symbol.

“I wanted to express the sorrow of our people.”

Baek Seol-gi started to explain her work, but Bang Tae-ho did not pay much attention.

He did not need to hear the explanation to appreciate the descriptive quality of the work.

He could guess the depth of Baek Seol-gi’s thoughts from the emotions conveyed by the painting.

‘Wow.’

Ma Eun-chan, who was with him, was also mesmerized by Baek Seol-gi’s painting.

He knew that there were many talented people gathered here, but he had not seen a painting that shook his heart like this recently.

“I’m also working on a painting with the national flag as a motif, and I plan to exhibit a figurative painting that captures the national sentiment at the Venice Biennale national exhibition. I hope it will be a wonderful gift for both our country and France.”

As Baek Seol-gi finished her presentation, Ma Eun-chan clapped his hands.

It was an act of goodwill and respect for the painter who showed him a good painting.

Baek Seol-gi, who did not expect to receive applause from her competitor, widened her eyes.

‘What’s with him?’

She could not understand Ma Eun-chan, who was sending applause with his eyes as bright as a seal.

Bang Tae-ho bit his lips and tried to hold back the laughter that was leaking out.

“I heard you well. Thank you for your hard work.”

Then he shifted his gaze to Ma Eun-chan and asked him.

“Mr. Ma Eun-chan, you are attending the Münster National Academy of Fine Arts, right?”

“Yes!”

“Is there any problem with your work activities?”

“Not at all! If there is a problem, I can take a leave of absence!”

Baek Seol-gi, who had barely calmed her mind after the presentation, nodded inwardly at Ma Eun-chan’s words.

Taking a semester off was not important.

If she could participate in the Venice Biennale, she had to do more.

“You have no exhibition experience. You said you draw portraits on the street?”

“Yes! I’ve been doing it as a part-time job for about a year. I draw about 5 to 6 people a week. Sometimes more than twice a day. They all like it.”

He liked his lively attitude, but it was not a remarkable thing.

But the reason why he called the college student who had no exhibition or award history to the interview room was because of his interesting style.

Bang Tae-ho glanced at the portfolio that Ma Eun-chan submitted and lifted his head.

“Then let’s hear your presentation that you prepared.”

“It’s not possible.”

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

The process of preparing for the Münster sculpture project was quite tough.

After arguing several times a day, they were finally making some progress.

But then Marso suggested to throw away the work they had done so far and do something completely different.

He argued with patience.

“We agreed to do it small in the front.”

“You wanted to do it big too, as long as there was no traffic problem.”

“We said it had to match the environment.”

“We don’t have to do it on the original building.”

“Do you think it makes sense to build a new fire station?”

“Why not?”

He was speechless.

“If we build a new one, it will lose its symbolism. It has to be connected to that building.”

“It doesn’t have to be physically attached. It just has to be meaningful.”

“That’s why it has to match the environment. Not make a new one!”

He could not communicate with him at all, so he parted ways and complained to his grandfather about what happened today.

He laughed cheerfully.

“Both sides have a point.”

“Not at all. I don’t know what he’s thinking.”

“He doesn’t want to compromise. Hoon, you wanted to install it in front of the fire station at first, didn’t you?”

He did.

It was his idea after seeing the photo that Marso synthesized. He wanted to create a timeline from the entrance of the fire station to the building.

So that people could naturally see the history of the Münster fire station as they walked.

Marso seemed to have the same idea, so he insisted.

“I didn’t have a clear idea.”

At first, he thought he could express it somehow with a wall, but he couldn’t find a good way.

"Marso didn't find the answer, did he?"

"Building ten fire stations doesn't seem like the answer to me."

"Huh?"

Marso's solution was to build several fire stations on a very large open space.

That way, we could keep walking and see how the fire stations and the Becker brothers changed over time.

"I don't know how much land you want to use, but we don't have time to do all that. The residents won't like it either."

"That's true."

Grandpa seemed to agree with me.

"I'm curious too."

"…."

"Hehe. Let's see what happens."

"I won't do it Marso's way unless there's a better option."

I went back to my room and prepared for the broadcast.

Bang Tae-ho was too busy to upload YouTube videos, so I had to do live broadcasts until I found an editor.

I turned on the broadcast and waited for enough people to join while playing the Berlin Philharmonic's performance that I recently enjoyed listening to.

When I came back from the bathroom, there were already 4,000 people connected.

"Hello, everyone."

└Hoon!

└Ping!

└Is it okay to broadcast so often?

└Forbes' top channel that makes you anxious if you work hard

└Don't you have to prepare for the Münster sculpture project and the Venice Biennale?

└You're also going to school.

└And playing at the playground.

└What's the playground?

└Playing with the kids. Like Dallyeoda Square.

"It's okay. I just came back from working with Marso. Don't worry, I'm doing this when I have free time."

They seemed to worry that I would neglect other things if I did broadcasts as well as being busy.

└Broadcasting is also work, right?????

└No, I'm not worried about other things, I'm worried about your health.??

└Is it a genius thing to work without worrying about your body?

└Hoon is still 13 years old. You shouldn't overdo it.

"I'm having fun with you guys. I don't think of it as work."

When I said it was my break time, the viewers flooded me with question marks.

└You're still young, but you'll get sick when you get older.

└Are you sleeping well?

└I ate spicy pork rice bowl!!!!

└How is it working with Marso?

The spicy pork rice bowl villain, no, Ma Eun-chan finally ate the spicy pork rice bowl.

The day after I came back from Münster, I mentioned on the live broadcast that I would draw a portrait for the viewers, and Ma Eun-chan responded.

I didn't think the spicy pork rice bowl villain was Ma Eun-chan, so I was surprised as well as the other viewers.

There were many people who thought he was an AI or a chatbot because he always typed that he wanted to eat spicy pork rice bowl.

As I was about to ask him how he ate it, the Marso villain asked me about working with Marso and I remembered the thing I had forgotten.

"Listen. This is what happened a while ago."

I couldn't reveal the idea before the work was announced, so I vaguely told them the story and they all laughed out loud.

I felt a little better.

* * *

1)Blue symbolizes freedom, white symbolizes equality, and red symbolizes friendship.

2)I got the motif from the poster of the movie .