HYUN-JOUNG LEE

Following her Singapore debut in January 2024, this exhibition marks Lee’s second solo presentation in the city, deepening her dialogue with Southeast Asian audiences and reaffirming her exploration of time, tradition, and the enduring beauty of nostalgia.

In her painting Great Paths, Lee transcends mere visual aesthetics, unfolding layers of meaning that rekindle dormant historical narratives. Through this work, she offers an intimate and spiritually evocative journey that bridges personal reflection with collective heritage.

Central to her approach is the decision to preserve hanji’s natural relief rather than compressing it. Upon this living surface, she inscribes intricate lines that accentuate and intersect with the paper’s organic architecture, imbuing her works with a dreamlike, almost otherworldly quality. Her compositions evoke the contours of mountains, the rise of geological formations, and the tactile memory of landscapes shaped over time.

Drawn in rhythm with her body, Lee’s lines swell and recede like breath, resembling musical staves or tidal ripples left by the sea’s retreat. For Lee, these forms represent life’s cyclical journey—less a fixed state than a perpetual passage. At once universal and deeply personal, they embody her own narrative while resonating with the shared experience of all who encounter them.

Lee meticulously creates each sheet of hanji by hand. The meditative process of extracting fibers from the inner bark of the mulberry tree and transforming them into paper is not merely preparatory but foundational to her art. As she separates and layers the fibers, forms begin to surface in her consciousness, allowing the material itself to guide the genesis of each work.