KEUNMIN LEE

Twenty-five years ago, while hospitalized following a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, Lee underwent two formative experiences: the authority of diagnosis and the experience of hallucination. He became aware of the violence embedded within systems that classify and define human disposition through the language of pathology. At the same time, he encountered hallucinations populated by nameless presences, fragmented bodies, traces of living organisms, raw matter, and wounds. Taking these memories of suffering as a point of departure, Lee repeatedly summons onto the canvas beings excluded or sacrificed by structures of categorization and control.

The exhibition traces the exposed psychological terrains that run throughout Lee’s work. Beneath systems of standardization, categorization, and regulation, his powerful and impressive paintings move toward forms that resist definition. Muscles, organs, and blood-like traces in Lee’s paintings drawn from in hallucination, yet they also constitute a truth shared by everyone and uncontrollable by anyone, regardless of the boundaries between self and other, disability and non-disability. Across the exhibition, the viewer is invited to encounter, together, the liberation and catharsis of moving beyond from forms of constraint.

Lee studied painting at Seoul National University and has presented solo and group exhibitions in Seoul, New York, Paris, Berlin, and Malmö, among other cities. He received widespread attention through the exhibition, And None Were Sick (2022) at Space K, Seoul. His works are included in the collections of Space K (Seoul), Colección SOLO (Madrid), and the Park Seo-Bo Foundation (Seoul).