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Lee, Seung o's Cubic Painting, Images Repeat the Cycle of Creation and Extinction
Hwang Jin
Since 1997 when he showed an experimental work like an installation using the paper, Lee, Seung o has been indulged in his own unique plastic art methodology, while being concerned with the medium 'paper.' His plastic art methodology, even called 'a discovery,' evokes a sigh on the part of the audience. He handled the common and usual paper or books from a different perspective. He began to apply not the plane but the section of paper to his painting. Such application excluded the ordinary or practical use of paper completely, and thus, a strange part of paper was revealed intact, attracting people's attention. His art works have different visual effects depending on the distance. The nearer we approach them, the paper changes into a material with the properties like oil painting or acryl. Hence, we begin to doubt our own eyes for the diversified or changed paper.
Lee, Seung o's work starts with the collection of waste paper and books around him. Various papers collected for a long time undergo several steps of processing - sorting, macerating, drying, cutting, etc., - to be reborn into the painting materials. The paper bundles processed as such will be cut thin to form the images on the canvas. The flexibility of paper is utilized to a maximum degree; the paper can be used like the brush stroke. Otherwise, the paper is rolled or folded. Thus, images are drawn on the canvas as if they were formed by diversified brush strokes. On the other hand, the diverse colors oozing out from between the grains of the section serve to represent the deep colors and properties of the oil painting with a grave tone. In addition, the artist creates a lyrical landscape or an architectural structure by stacking the material continuously and thereby, rendering a delicate change. Such properties of paper as flexibility and absorption are combined with the intentional coincidence resulting from its processing to make the atmosphere of the works picturesque. Furthermore, texture and volume of paper and rhythmical changes add up to breathe life and vitality into the grave painting space. Thus, his works reveal the properties of the material on their surface directly, which means that he agonized over the selection of materials in the complicated process of work.
He starts working with the thought "The innumerable images floating in the world are already natural things." Probably, he seems to project the biological nature of the images onto his work, while observing a great many waste papers stacked in his studio, although their roles have been done all. Like life, images repeat the cycle of creation and extinction, as if thoughts continue to come to mind to be lost. Paper is no exception. Its role has been done, but revived in his works. Maybe, images have a stronger power than letters. Sometimes, they are indirect and at other times, they are direct. However, it looks likely that images fear a change as much as the conception planted in our brain. However, the artist disperses such fixed images little by little by means of a methodological change. The most direct example is Gogh's "Sunflower Series." Each of the series is just construction of images, neither description nor representation. Such images with their frames fixed are varied and excited visually through diversified expressions of the pure material and anonymity in Lee's works.
Recently, Lee, Seung o showed us some cubic paintings. They look like the cubic cards we received from abroad when young. The cubic card moved delicately to show two images simultaneously or in series. The canvas consisted of the equilateral triangular columns of the same size laid out vertically in parallel. The artist inserted two images on both sides shot up in order to show three images to the audience. Namely, the fragments of image split regularly were set according to their positions and then, broke again. As it is, the images repeat the cycle of creation and extinction depending on the views. His art works are placed between relief and 2D painting. So, the artist calls them "cubic paintings." The works shown this time do not hint any new attempt in terms of methodology. However, we can read some directionality toward 3D in them. The sections of the paper bundles and the fine crevices remind us of the paper planes and subsequently, the depth of the space. Probably so, we imagine that the papers filling the canvas, as if they were overloaded, cannot overcome the weight only to rise up.
The images selected for such 'cubic paintings' may be grouped according to associations and ambivalence. The term 'ambivalence' may well apply to such art works as Andy Warhol's 'Marilyn Monroe,' van Gogh's 'Self-Portrait and Chair,' Matisse's early and late works, one dollar and upturned two dollar, Mao Zedong of the socialist China and the cover of a capitalist fashion magazine, Roy Richtenstein's works and Kandinsky's works, etc. Such images are engaged with each other with no boundary within a cubic frame. If we approach them nearer, the boundary between two images disappear. The artist contains such associated images on a single canvas to explain the assimilative phenomenon visually. On the other hand, he lays out the symbolic images of different cultures to suggest a cultural ambivalence and co-existence. After all, Lee Seung-oh attempts to present the complicated phenomena of our society as a communication and fusion of differences and harmonies by inserting the images as nature into his cubic painting. He tells us the cultural or social repetition of coincidence and inevitability with the folded papers soaked in time.
Earlier, a methodological intention was important in Lee, Seung o's paper series. As time went on, however, such plastic methodology came to be settled as his own unique plastic language through order and repetition. One of the important results is cohesion of materials. Properties of the pure material, their delicate changes and diversity of such changes interact with each other to deliver an intention and meaning of the acts to the audience.
His works are the natural things themselves, according to him. While most of the artists produce innumerable wastes from their works, he processes the waste paper to be reborn directly on the surface of his works. His plastic methodology has been recognized as original to be settled as matiere. However, he might be aware of the need for change. Maybe, it is thought that his cubic paintings have been born on the extension from such thought. Creating and constructing an original plastic language must be important for the artists who attempt to create their own languages. They are not given to any body. Hence, Lee, Seung o has made a great achievement. However, just as the cultural ambivalence exists permanently, so it is expected that meditation on our own things and creative activities therefrom will be born into an original fine art language.
이승오
Lee, Seung o
1999 중앙대학교 일반대학원 서양학과 졸업
1985 중앙대학교 예술대학 회화학과 졸업
개인전
2011 이승오초대전, 예술의 전당, 서울
이승오초대전, 갤러리 K, 서울
2010 이승오 초대전, 청담아트갤러리, 대구
이승오 초대전, 공평아트스페이스, 서울
단체전
2011 괄목상대, 아트플럭스, 서울
2010 SH Contemporary, 상하이,
수퍼스타전, 창원성산아트홀, 창원,
모나리자의 콧수염, 광주시립미술관, 광주,
미술과 놀이, 예술의 전당, 서울
2009 독일ZKM개관10주년전, 아시아의 물결, Karlsruhe, 독일
1999 Chung-Ang University, Painting Department. M.F.A
1985 Chung-Ang University, Painting Department. B.F.A
Solo Exhibition
2011 Invited Exhibition, SAC, Seoul
Invited Exhibition, Gallery K, Seoul
2010 Invited Exhibition, Cheong Dham art Gallery, Daegu
Invited Exhibition, Seoul art center Gongpyeng gallery, Seoul
Group Exhibition
2011 VICE VERSA, artflux, Seoul
2010 SH Contemporary, Shanghai, China
Super Star, Seongsan Art Hall, Changwon
Mustache of Monalisa ,Gwangju museum of art ,Gwangju
Art & Paly, SAC, Seoul
2009 ZKM 10th anniversary, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
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