YONGJAE LEE

Yongjae Lee’s practice explores the structure and temporality of painting. He speaks about painting through painting, creating paintings that represent other paintings. Drawing on Eastern and Western art histories, printed reproductions, and digital images as points of reference, he explores the grammar of painting and the conditions through which it takes shape. Lee regards tradition not as a fixed past, but as a heritage continuously formed and reformed through specific historical and cultural contexts. By citing and repositioning images from different periods and sources, he establishes new relationships between them and attends to what he describes as the “post-original state,” constructing narratives that extend beyond representation. His work is grounded in the methodology of the meta-picture, borrowing and transforming the structures of earlier paintings and the imagery of others. Through this process, painting becomes an ongoing conversation and a sustained field of research.