Tranquility - The Golden Koi of Busan

This panel began with a memory of standing beside a koi pond at twilight, when the water turns so dark it seems to erase its own surface. In that half-light the fish appeared to drift through emptiness, their ochre scales catching stray glints like sparks in a brazier. I wanted the mosaic to hold that hush: the moment when movement is more suggestion than fact, and the line between fish and shadow blurs.

I cut each tessera by hand from gilded smalti, slate and mirrored glass, letting the natural fractures dictate the scales’ geometry. The background is a jigsaw of matte black shards; irregular gaps between them create the illusion of ripples and depth without a single wave being drawn. By hinging the composition on three koi, all arcing in a slow vertical spiral, I invite the eye to travel upward as if following a hidden current.

While working I reflected on the koi’s place in folklore: creatures that swim against waterfalls until they become dragons. Fixing them in glass is my way of freezing that resolve in mid-journey. I hope viewers feel a quiet pull towards perseverance—an understanding that even in the darkest water, a flicker of gold can chart the way forward.