![]() ![]() In addition, he also has developed a rich vocabulary of brushstrokes that stimulate the viewer's tactile and somatic experience. Combined with this formal rigor, the artist also measures his own breath and its impact on the length of his brushstroke, thereby instilling harmony and an overall gestural effect. Lee makes his own canvas and tests various grounds to control the absorption of the paint. Intertwined in an all-over style, these elements remind us not only of nature but also of the complex abstraction inherent to the unrestrained brushstrokes that constitute painting. Lee's canvas teems with tremendous biodiversity including plants and grasses of myriad descriptions, flowers, mosses, and puddled water. ![]() By conceptually joining the two spaces, Lee transforms the entire exhibition into a total artwork, illustrating how a familiar subject such as a landscape can-like a concerto-be interpreted endlessly. In these single works on canvas, the artist further explores how paintings relate to and communicate with one another through scale and subject matter. ![]() This kind of subtle manipulation of perspective and formal sleight of hand is continued in the front gallery. In a further critical strategy, Lee has removed a single canvas from the image, exposing the wall, while simultaneously showing a blown-up version of the missing work on an adjacent wall in the gallery. As a result, the framing device of the picture disrupts the viewer's attempt to comprehensively 'read' the entire landscape. As each work is framed mechanically, rather than being devoted to a unified composition, the artist directs his focus and ours to each unique brushstroke. The individual frames in the Untitled 4819 series demonstrate how material and technical variations highlight one's subjectivity and desire. Acknowledging this critical disconnect between what we see and how an image is constructed, Lee uses scale to a similar effect. As a source of inspiration for the artist, the film explores themes of optical desire and how visual truth is manipulated by the camera. 'Blow-Up,' the title of the exhibition, is taken from a 1966 film of the same name by Michelangelo Antonioni and conveys a technical term meaning to enlarge a photograph or film still. Instead, the artist is focused on the shift of perspective the viewer experiences in front of the deliberately blown-up and abstracted scene. Standing in front of this scene, the audience cannot grasp the entirety of the subject, and for Lee, the particular elements, the varied terrain and individual fauna are not his primary concerns. At this scale and detail, the scarlet and ivory moss and clumps of grass are magnified to become actors on an enormous stage, where the human figure no longer dominates. In this way, Lee Kwang-Ho prompts the viewer to constantly shift their focus while becoming aware of their own point of view. Scaled to fit the gallery space, the installation creates a kind of backdrop to construct this scene, Lee enlarged one of his photographs to entirely cover the wall and divided it into 60 equally sized frames, allowing the individual canvases to create a grid where each painting is both autonomous and part of a larger whole. To capture this extraordinary landscape, the artist started by taking countless photographs from different angles in order to capture all the tremendous detail in the complex ecology. Being the first work of this scale completed by the artist, the landscape is composed of 59 individual canvases organized by the titles from Untitled 4819-1 to Untitled 4819-60 (excluding Untitled 4819-12). By framing this wild, diverse landscape, and applying his prodigious eye for detail, Lee invites the viewer to enter the picture, contemplating the natural world as framed by his unique painterly perspective and his inimitable manner¹ in terms of his use of techniques.Īt the rear gallery in K1, there is a large-scale landscape painting that covers the entire wall. BLOW-UP focuses exclusively on Lee's recent series exploring the wetlands of New Zealand's South Island near the Kepler Track. One of the central concerns of the artist is the role of 'perspective' and the relationship between what the artist sees and how the painted subject is captured on canvas. Mastering a range of painterly techniques and styles that include both traditional realism and contemporary abstraction, Lee's diverse practice captures an array of subjects including portraiture, still life, and landscape. Nine years since the artist's last exhibition at Kukje Gallery, the upcoming presentation at both spaces in the gallery's K1 building will be devoted to showcasing 65 works by Korea's most widely celebrated realist painter. Kukje Gallery is pleased to present BLOW-UP, a solo exhibition of new works by Lee Kwang-Ho, on view from 14 December 2023 to 28 January 2024.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |