1. Introduction: Why the Concept of “Zensō” Was Indispensable
The reason I arrived at the concept of “Zensō (Pre-layer)” is that through my continuous practice of painting, I became faced with a fundamental question from which I could no longer turn away: “How does vision actually emerge?”
When we look at a painting, it appears as though we comprehend the image instantaneously. In reality, however, our gaze initially wavers, wanders, and inevitably passes through a transient, pre-convergent duration where the center has not yet been determined. Over more than forty years of creation, I have come to believe firmly that this unconverged moment is the most essential site of generation in painting.
Yet, modern art history has completely neglected this domain.
- Modernism lunged toward the “purification of form,” reaching a dead end.
- Postmodernism rejected the very existence of a center.
Consequently, the question of how vision comes into being was left entirely absent from art history.
To fill this fatal void, I named this state of wavering and generation—which occurs the very instant vision touches the picture plane—“Zensō (Pre-layer).” Zensō does not mean that the canvas itself is physically shaking. Rather, it refers to a state of perception in which vision has not yet converged, fluctuating instead between multiple possibilities.
And I call the state where the Visual Laws fully converge, stabilizing the image into a singular structure, “Kōsō (Post-layer).”
Zensō and Kōsō are not physical layers that exist tangibly within a painting. They constitute the temporal structure through which vision passes as it reads and decodes a painting.
2. The Emergence of Structure: The Record Analogy
While conventional art criticism uses “Pre-layer / Post-layer” to refer to a spatial hierarchy, my concept of Zensō / Kōsō points to the temporal structure of perception.
Vision does not establish itself instantaneously; it emerges through a temporal process of “Wavering → Activation → Convergence.” This dynamism closely resembles the relationship between a vinyl record and a turntable needle.
The artwork is a single “record.” There, only paint and canvas exist as physical matter; by themselves, they have not yet given birth to music (structure). However, deeply engraved upon that surface are “grooves of attitude”—the trace of how the artist confronted the Visual Laws.
The act of a viewer looking at the artwork is equivalent to “dropping the needle” onto the record. The moment the human eye touches the picture plane, the “Visual Laws (the dynamics of gravity, direction, and center)” are activated for the first time.
As the needle reads further into the groove, “music (structure)” begins to rise within our perception.
3. Zensō and Kōsō: The Two States of Perception
When human vision encounters an artwork, two decisively different states occur. This relationship can be likened to that of “water” and “ice.”
- Zensō (Non-convergence — The Layer of Wavering: Water just before freezing) A state where the Visual Laws are fully activated, yet deliberately refrain from collapsing into a single conclusion. The center remains undetermined, maintaining a “unity just prior to convergence” that holds infinite latent possibilities.
- Visual Laws The universal force activated within the wavering of Zensō that drives perception toward convergence. It guides the gaze, generates hierarchies, and raises structure. It is a dynamic system that subtly moves our perception prior to language.
- Kōsō (Convergence — The Layer of Settlement: Ice) A state where the Visual Laws have completely converged, the center has settled, and the image has been fixed as a definitive structure.
【The Artist’s Attitude in Painting】
An artwork itself cannot be neatly categorized as either “Zensō” or “Kōsō.” Nor is the artist ever permanently fixed within one layer or the other.
What exists there is the trajectory of a tense, critical choice: whether the artist’s attitude toward the Visual Laws was “Zensō-like” or “Kōsō-like.” The “Zensō-style work” I attempt to realize is the very attitude of eternally preserving that most beautiful “unity just prior to convergence” within the picture plane, right before perception snaps into fixed rigidity.
4. Q&A: Deepening the Understanding of the Theory
Q.1 Does Zensō refer to an “unfinished” state?
A. No. “Unfinished” implies a mere state of underachievement—stopping mid-way toward a definitive structure (Kōsō). The Zensō I speak of is not a scattered, incomplete state. Like water just before it freezes into ice, it holds every latent possibility while maintaining a highly sophisticated wholeness across the entire screen. It is a “unity just prior to convergence,” and as such, it is a fully autonomous resolution (completion) in its own right.
Q.2 Where exactly is the center born (generated)?
A. It is born not on the physical matter of the canvas, but “in the space between the artwork’s dynamics (Visual Laws) and the viewer’s perception.” Just as music is born only when the record groove rubs against the needle, the dynamics engraved on the screen as my attitude move your eyes, generating a center within your brain. The center is not a fixed authority; it is a generative process that constantly moves within perception. It remains “Zensō-like” while it wavers, and becomes “Kōsō-like” once it is fixed.
Q.3 What is the difference between the “pleasant wavering” of Zensō and mere “collapse or unpleasantness”?
A. The difference lies in whether the Visual Laws on the screen (direction, gravity, tension) are “dynamically driving” or “stagnant and dead.” A painting that is merely difficult to look at or unpleasant either locks the gaze in a suffocating grid because the Visual Laws half-heartedly cancel each other out, or it exhaustingly fatigues the brain by crudely betraying perceptual predictions. Within a pleasant wavering (Zensō), even amidst intense destabilization, a profound structural necessity and the restoration of breath are absolutely guaranteed. This is why the wavering does not collapse, but remains Zensō—a unity just prior to convergence.
Q.4 How would you restate the difference between your theory, Modernism, and Postmodernism in a single sentence?
A. While Modernism reached a dead end through the “purification of form” and Postmodernism drifted toward the “absence of the center (an escape into social context),” my endeavor is to reclaim the very generation process of the center back into the realm of painting. It stands in decisive contrast to conventional criticism, which analyzes paintings via spatial hierarchies (surface vs. depth); instead, my work addresses the temporal structure of perception that ignites within the body the exact instant a human encounters a painting.
Q.5 Can the work of Kenneth Noland be described as “Zensō-like”?
A. It partially exhibits Zensō-like phenomena (wavering), but it is not Zensō itself. By “placing” a center, Noland ignites a material wavering such as bleeding or diffusion (staining). However, that center is fixed from the very beginning as a formal shape; it never generates anew within the viewer’s wavering perception.
Zensō refers to a temporal duration where the center is not yet settled, and the interior of perception begins to generate a center as the Visual Laws test multiple possibilities. Noland’s wavering belongs to physical matter, and his center remains motionless. Therefore, while his work partially captures the texture of Zensō, its essence ultimately resides in Kōsō (fixed structure).