Mindfulness is all the rage these days. But a new retrospective shows Korean artist Park Seo-Bo was pioneering this approach back in the 1960s.

There was a Buddhist saying that the composer John Cage was fond of repeating. “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”

This philosophy found its way into the artworks made by a generation of Korean artists who emerged in the 1960s. Seeing their country torn apart in a toxic tug of war between America, China and Soviet Russia, they sought a style that broke free from national identity. They wanted to create something universal. Coined the Korean Monochrome Movement (or Dansaekhwa) – the result was a focus on repetitive gestures.

The first UK solo show by Park Seo-Bo, regarded as key player in the Dansaekhwa movement, presents a romp through three decades of his ‘Ecriture’ paintings. That is, if you think a romp is the slow trickle of rain down a windowpane, or the always changing, yet somehow the same, undulations of the ocean.

Shown at the White Cube Mason’s Yard, the paintings are almost as simple as the pure white walls of the gallery. Positioned alone on each wall, like a religious icon, they are set slightly away from the wall, hovering in a supernaturally ghostly way and taking on a sculptural quality.

Unlike the American Abstract Expressionist works of the 1950s – which predate and inspired them to some extent – Park’s works don’t snap, crackel or pop with ego. Instead the scribbles, drawn onto the canvas before the paint dried, only slowly start to give up their secrets with the stares of the patient.

Like much abstract art from this period, there is no figurative background to draw from. It’s all about the physicality of the art. But its whispers have a meditative quality that fits into the current trend for ‘mindfulness’. You’re not going to get a quick fix here. Instead, you have to wait for Park’s paintings to come to you.

And they do. Rather like standing in heavy snow and looking up into the sky. Mesmirising and weirdly boring. But then, maybe that’s the point.

‘Park Seo-Bo Ecriture 1967-1981’, curated by Katharine Kostyal, runs from 15 January till 12 March at White Cube Mason’s Yard, London.