Residual memory and traumatic occurrence foreshadow South Korean painter Lee Jinju's surreal compositions, where psychological landscapes mirror images from the subconscious mind.
Read MoreBorn in 1980, Busan, Korea, Lee's early life informed her later interest in memory and the subconscious, having lived through a near-kidnapping at the age of five. She never spoke of the experience and had a normal childhood until her twenties, when one of her friends got stabbed, another mugged and her house was broken into.
While studying Oriental Painting at Seoul's Hongik University, which led to her signature Korean painting style, an incident in her neighbourhood re-awakened early memories; Lee would later question the nature of the recurrence of unwanted recollection through her art.
Rendered with Korean paint on linen, Lee's psychological landscapes are replete with symbols and images from daily life, abstracted as an inquiry into memory and perception.
Lee's early landscapes are abundant with symbolism but devoid of narrative, alluding to the nuances of seeing and perception. Rendered above platforms or within geometric shapes, they transport us into an atemporal space, where painting becomes a means to process experience.
In Island of Borders (2013), a tent filled with belongings burns in a corner while a woman in sheer stockings readies to discard the weight of a commemorative flower arrangement. Iron blocks, sandbags and stone speak to the weight of recollection, while ropes connecting and restricting passage allude to the mental boundaries that act as gateways towards healing.
The artist has referred to the nature of memory as a standalone island with 'no visible beginning nor end'. As things connect and resurface in her head, art then offers a way to isolate and make sense of experiences on their own, outside the framework of 'anxiety and fear'.
Symbols alluding to the dangers of awareness scatter throughout Layers of Daytime (2014), where a playground covered in snow is littered with bare trees and industrial waste. Inside the shaded cube that frames the whole, we note a deer caught in headlights, a child on a platform surrounded by spotlights and recording devices and a black spade.
Depicting what lays underground, the bottom fifth of the canvas is outlined like a reversed iceberg, with sections that remain darkened around the corners as a nod to the elements that remain concealed within the subconscious.
Plants and nude figures recur across expressive compositions, the former growing, the latter with their ears plugged (Unpredictable, 2018; End of the Summer, 2014). Rendered with gentle brushstrokes, wearing serene expressions, they attest to the artist's approach, which begins from curiosity, rather than catharsis.
Elsewhere, segmented hands are set against black backdrops holding different objects: flowers, prayer notes, crushed eggs and flames. Removed from the body and a contextual environment, they reflect the seemingly random ways the subconscious mind communicates, as well as the importance of art—painting in Lee's case—as a means to retain agency in an unpredictable world.
In later compositions, objects and figures are distributed across multiple planes, starting with the two cubical prisms of Unseen (2019)—black and white boxes containing a kneeling woman set above a vertical arrangement of gardening tools, and dogs sitting above eggs.
Five Gaps (2021) depicts a range of fragmented vegetation connected by string across a compartmentalised box. Bullet holes marking the left wall, and a pair of scissors that pierce through the ground, speak to partial recollections and gaps in understanding.
Act 3 (2022–23) compresses the bodies of two lovers and a hanging third figure between three open walls hovering in space. Thin green thread and sweeping foliage attest to the ongoing nature of life, and moments when memory engulfs the present.
Lee Jinju is the recipient of the 2007 Arts Council Korea Promotion Fund and the second prize recipient of the 2014 Songeun Art Award and the 2009 JoongAng Fine Arts Prize.
In 2023, Lee Jinju was announced as one of 13 artists chosen for the Korean Artists Abroad programme supported by Korea Arts Management Service.
Lee Jinju's works have been shown widely across Asia and the United States, as well as in Europe and the UK.
Solo exhibitions include: Baik Art Gallery, Los Angeles (2017); Arario Gallery, Seoul (2017); Doosan Gallery, New York (2014); Gallery Hyundai, Seoul (2011); Gallery JungMiSo, Seoul (2008); and Gallery Dos, Seoul (2006).
Group exhibitions include: American University Museum, Washington; Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul; Asia Culture Center, Gwanju; Sejong Museum of Art, Seoul (all 2016); Seoul Museum of Art (2015); SongEun Art Space, Seoul (2014); Space Cottonseed, Singapore (2013); and Korean Cultural Centre, London (2011).
The artist lives and works in Paju and Seoul.
Lee Jinju is represented by Arario Gallery, Cheonan/Seoul/Shanghai.
The artist's website can be found here, her Instagram here.
Elaine YJ Zheng | Ocula | 2023
