Lee, Do : Contemporary Historicity

LEE DO's exhibition this time includes mainly three elements of materials. The first is of blue jeans, the second all sorts of jewels with add-on extras, and the third the images of women's body segments that are filled with material desires. The main theme of the artwork represented by the structural totality of these three items, accordingly, exposes a comparative historicity of the day to each item while displaying a harmony among the three. The artist with such a theme would praise capitalism in which at the same time the artist could enjoy disclosing women's desires inclining toward pretentious beauty inherent in capitalism, so as to expose eventually people's obsession with materialism, mammonism, and hedonism in the settings of current significance for the present days.

Expansion of Jeans' Contemporary Historicity and

Cultural Posits from Alien Contacts between Material Desires


                                                           Written by Hong, Jun wha (Doctor philosophy, esthetics)

Jeans have thus skipped all kinds of limitations, and the original roles and functions become useless losing the original meaning. Instead, jeans now ask for a contact or connection with jewelry as well as luxury brands in fashion that are placed at the top of material desires. By attaching jewels and female add-ons to the jeans, the artist LEE DO is maximizing the present historicity of jeans and demanding an establishment and realization of a new meaning or significance for his artwork.

Realistically speaking, searching for affinity or harmony between jeans and jewels is a try to make a friendship among the most heterogeneous or alien things to each other. Because of this, the union among the elements of the painting looks as much awkward as the try. The gap between jeans and jewels or between jeans and luxury items is abysmal and sustains its inherent qualities that cannot be easily filled up or disappeared. In other words, jeans exhibit the qualities of the most general and popular whereas jewels and luxury commodities display the traits of the most aristocratic and the fewest. Nevertheless, they are struggling to make friendship with each other although sometimes isolated and separated from each other without finding a point of contact.

Various jewels and preferences of women hanging in the surrounding air of the jeans subsequently make efforts to free themselves from alienation or isolation they are at, in order to establish a precondition for the friendship with jeans, that is, a foundation for their meaningful existence. Required is a contact, crossing over such abysmal gap, between the present historicity of jeans and the extremely alien beauty of jewels and female preferences. So much must also be needed for the elements of the artist's works toward a special meaning conversion, a request of ingredients for a sort of contact or communication among the elements.

Female Body as Arbitrator and its Depiction in Paintings

Now the artist is sailing of a long journey for an answer. Accordingly, it became obvious for a women to appear in the artwork, revealing her desires for materials. She is accomplishing her roles devotedly in the forms of female body almost burst at the seams hidden in the blue jean and jacket, of her figure from behind facing with a car, or of her back with a luxury bag on her shoulder marching somewhere. The meaning of her role is clearly visible, for instance, when the lines of her underpants are distinctly swelled and pressed against the jeans. How about her hair look that is filled with various ornaments of jewels? It shows her material desires so exaggerated that her soul gets out of place not to be able to judge things correctly. The same is shown in other women's head figures thrown into convulsions at seeing the women's hairdos. These female appearances are not different from the appearances of women crave for material desires as if they are in sexual drives needed to explode. The friendly relationship between the two mentioned above is now in the pursuit of meaningful coexistence, in a way that the appearance of the women becomes so natural in the painting.

The artist is thus already aware of the way the artwork should be structured, then he sincerely puts all such pre-perceived meanings into the work. Through his artwork, the artist is in control of performing his grip of meanings in the forms of paintings, arts, and aesthetics that are inclined to show the real essence of what is meant to be expressed. Although an art piece can be made in accordance with the artist's taste, but the workpiece as a whole should never exclude any part of the whole, rather include all parts functioning toward a harmonious totality from alien characteristics. By showing the process of such art-making, the artist is revealing his artistic capacity and consciousness surpassing his comprehension of the meanings of images in the painting.

To achieving metaphysical ideals by way of paintings―beyond pretentious material attributes―through the use of capitalistic elements that are so trivial and common to mention but lurking in our heart of covetous desires!

    Beijing2010-2 350x140cm Acrylic on Canvas 2010

李東喆 (Lee Do)

1987~1997 Greduated From Department Of Fain Art,

College of fain arts and Greduate School,

Keimyung University.

SOLO EXHIBITION

2009 Philp Kang Gallery (Seoul)

Art Gallery Chungdam (ChungDo)

2007 Gallery YeaGa (BuSan)

Gallery Frado (DaeGu)

1997 Sheraton Hotel (Rome)

1993 Gallery Magda Danysz (Paris)

MAJOR EXHIBITIONS

Shanghai Art fair(Shanghai MART)

Rome internationai Hotel Art fair(Rome)

3 artist (CS fain Art,L.A)

QIAF Art Festival (Chintao)

Korea,Japan Contemporary ART Exhibition

(Fukuoka. Daegu)

Korea. Japan. Chaina artist(Taipei)