Special Exhibition
Into Drawing 47
25.11.2022-25.12.2022
Curated by Jisu Yoon

Curatorial Statement
Her Real Secret
Jisu Yoon, Curator

Lee Sung Jae’s work is based on his own personal experience. Starting from stories about women who have had a direct and indirect effect on his life, Lee lays out subjects such as femininity, maternal affection, and family love in a variety of mediums. His artistic study has been quickened by his memory of everyday life while he has achieved some beauty through his own experiences, representing both the real and the transcendental simultaneously.

This salient feature is striking in his sculptural works. Each work deals with subjects like ‘the birth of life,’ ‘a shift in a woman’s life,’ or ‘a personal experience’ he had in another country. What’s common in such three works is a vertical line he appropriated from Barnett Newman’s ‘zip’ as a device to express the sublime proceeding to the transcendental. This vertical line expands his work infinitely while dividing or connecting space, arousing a sense of awe and mystery in his audience. Lee was at a turning point in terms of his work’s narrative and context as well as his expression of form while staying in a foreign country. With Her Real Secret: Onement (2018) as a starting point, Lee demonstrated changes in both form and content, which are associated with his experience. His works are an eloquent representation of his psychological stance toward American capitalistic society dominated by Puritan ethical ideas. This work shows the cultural differences he experienced in the United States and an overlap of emotions he might feel in a chaotic situation such as poverty and wealth, darkness and light, and good and evil. Produced based on the composition of its previous work, Her Real Secret: Birth of Mother (2021) is a symbolic representation of the process by which his beloved wife becomes pregnant, gives birth, and is changed into a mother. Broken Water (2022), which is a figuration of his wife’s waters (amniotic fluid) breaking, displays an implicative representation of the condensation of life force or the birth of new life. Mixed feelings like awe, dread, and expectation his wife might feel in pregnancy and childbirth are sensed in this work. These feelings show the connotative beauty of transcendental ‘sublimity.’ While Barnett Newman brought about the aesthetic sublime with an enormous single-color field, Lee maximized this sublimity through his internalized experience and visual equipment.

Derived from materials and studies on their material properties, and inspired by everyday subject matter, his work is a figuration of his experience using feminine everyday materials such as thread, lace, acrylic nails for manicure, and beads. He discovered the various possibilities thread has as a material and used it to lend volume to his sculptural pieces. Such pliable yet sturdy materials help him arouse a visual and tactile warmth and delicacy. A myriad of water drops (amniotic fluid) depicted with nail polish and beads sparkle through the reflection of surrounding light, holding moments of an ecstatic state. The vivid colors Lee employs and intense red symbolic of blood help him enrich his work’s symbolism and meaning. A close association of these diverse elements shows his spiritual world distinguished from other everyday experiences.

Her Real Secret: Onement (2018) brought a turning point in his practice, but elements, mediums, and expressive modes of his juvenilia remained unchanged in this work. He has sought how to select a medium depending on the narrative he wants to convey, working in a wide range of mediums such as video, installation, and drawing. This multi-media approach enriches the story he intends to lay out. He has also attempted the expansion of his work’s subject matter from womanly love to maternal affection or familial love. Bosom Wafting + Lullaby (2022) is a revelation of his mother’s existence embracing everything and her endless maternal affection in video. This video shows his affectionate mother greeting her son who is back after his time in America and the artist who feels a sense of unconscious anxiety but enjoys peace and rest in his mother’s arms. Viewers naturally accept these scenes as their own stories. Island House Baby, a Korean lullaby sung by his mother as background music in this video brings back childhood memories everyone is likely to have. To Lee, maternal love serves to work as a metaphor and a sense of solidarity among family members.

The subject matter he has commonly addressed is found in his drawing series and semi-abstract paintings. Such subject matter is symbolically represented in his works such as Permanent Waves (2022) and Silfur Series (2021, 2022). Lee symbolizes an object by patternizing the identity of a woman (mother) in clothes with the same pattern (paisley) and the same hair style (perm). This derived from his realistic depictions of images gained from his personal experiences, but appears metaphorical through a figuration in one pattern. His own distinctive scenes are created when delicately depicted patterns are amassed in pens often used by cartoonists are visually arranged and fused together. His unconsciously and delicately illustrated images lead viewers to be interested in his work’s backstory. Lee unfolds his own story he has come to have as a father of one child, an artist, a husband, and also a son through his work. Although the keyword, ‘everyday life’ does not interpret his entire oeuvre, his stories amassed are a significant key to unlocking his work. It is hoped his stories in the venue will serve to bring our deep memories to mind.