SANG NAM LEE

The unique geometric icons and marks layered on the panels and canvas are borrowed from the image of modern society which has too many shapes and colors, and according to the expression of the artist himself, they are reborn as a geometric and abstract image of Sang Nam Lee’s own through the artistic process of ‘chewing images’. The artist has composed the paintings with over 500 diverse art icons devised by himself since the beginning of the work, and this work of his expresses a much refined energy in the midst of mutual exchanges of colors, lines and spaces beyond the simple arrangement and combination.

The works of artist Sang Nam Lee is made of several layers of paints on which he repeatedly painted in acrylic and sanded down 50 through 100 times. His work involving enormous invisible labor and extreme materiality cleverly shakes the border between paintings, design and objects. The unique and elaborate process crossing the materiality of the West and the spirituality of the East is the process of searching for ‘the icon of the future’ said by the artist, who has explored the roles of paintings over the past 30 years, and is explained as the aesthetics of a moment to catch the anonymous eyes of the general public. In particular, as these days the abstract painting in which the geometric representational paintings in the early 20th century is combined with the modern emotions is settling as a new trend in the Western art world, it is needed to pay a great attention to the fact that the exploration of geometrism is the area that artist Sang Nam Lee has inquired into in depth since the 1980s.

The artist entered the world stage through solo exhibitions at Elga Wimmer PCC in New York, Appere Gallery in Amsterdam and so on, and was selected as one of the ten ‘artists that will not be forgotten even in 100 years’ by Chosun Ilbo in 2008. In addition, he hit the headlines of culture section of Wall Street Journal by submitting works to the Armory Show in New York in March 2008 as the only artist from PKM Trinity Gallery, and achieved the distinction to permanently establish a large-scale painting (about 70 meters in width) in the lobby of new airport in Poznan by being chosen as one of the artists for main section programs of the Mediations Biennale held in Poznan, the second largest city in Poland in the coming September. His large art project displayed in the new airport in Poznan, Poland connecting the continents of Eastern and Western Europe is already wakening the interest of the region and is planning to reveal its immense splendor soon.

Courtesy PKM Gallery