Self-Portrait: A Climber of Today, maybe a Runner of Tomorrow

by Juri Cho

The artist Leeeunji has had several exhibitions since her first show <stay / sway> in 2018, and she seems to have become an experienced artist who has already established her style and logic. Such an assertion may impose an unwanted burden on the artist, but it is an accurate assessment when I think of the artist's ability to foresee several steps ahead of where others would have worked tirelessly for a long time to reach. This includes Lee’s clever solution that connects the whole gestalt between each series. She builds images inside and outside of the screen, in front of the act of painting, behind the exhibition.  

When I look at Lee's texts and images, I think that her view is based on structural morphology. Structuralists do not focus on the properties or permanently functional traits of individuals but observe the transformation of relationships in all directions. They examine the underlying structures and systems of principles that exist beyond phenomena. In that sense, the “Creeper” is the artist's raw vocabulary that emerges from the artist’s worldview of inanimate objects and nature, the composition of civilization and artistic remnants, and the whole and its parts. It is also an artistic glossary that she will accumulate in the future. The rhetorical expression of the work does not come from the context of sociological analysis or linguistic philosophy. Based on Lee’s definition of the word, it is possible to infer that the structure of the vine she wants to express is that of her own. According to Lee, “Creeper” accesses indefinite masses filled with membranes and intrusions. Everything is both a part and a whole, both inside and outside. It is also in a “lumpy” state where its size or feeling cannot be accurately described. Whether it is a vine or a lump, what needs to be executed and delivered in the place of “creeper” is the compatible structure of the realm; a contrast between a finished piece inside the picture plane and the creator on the outside, as well as the artist's ever-growing self-consciousness and certain things that are meant to be thrown away. 

Lee’s previous exhibition, <stay / sway>, a contrasting landscape of black paintings against the white wall, also provides a consistent clue. The exhibition of “Burden” and “Turbulence” gave a heavy responsibility to a young artist and raised an issue about the physical and psychological relationship between the works that dominated the space. It must be a burdensome task to carry over a lifetime. Psychological turbulence will have to be endured in the middle and prepare for the movement, disposal, hospitality, and coldness that will follow soon. Lee's paintings in this exhibition have already shown superimposed areas, vertical and horizontal thicknesses, and a sense of sculptural volume perceived from afar. Rather than leaving the flat surface, she adopted a methodological method to visualize the structural aspect of the work, both as a whole and as a propagating part. In this exhibition, Lee does not simply reproduce the subject on a picture plane, or remove the narrative context of a form, or create an abstract representation of life. What she attempts to illustrate in her another phase of storage and processing, birth and death. 

I can't help smiling when I hear the title of the new series that she is preparing: “Climber”. It is because Lee resembles a climber: the type of activity that she immersed herself in the studio and her contemplative pose when making challenging decisions for the show. While the ‘Creeper’ is reminiscent of the direction of the force climbing up the wall with a moderate momentum, the climber gives a differentiated image of climbing up with a heavier and faster momentum. Seeing that the artist used the same leaflet from the previous exhibition, we can tell the physical nature of the work is the same. However, it is impossible not to notice that she attempts to make a virtual movement and conceptual change in the space. 

On the exhibition wall, there are ten paintings, each composed on the eleven picture books. In addition, the square paintings with constructed layers are hung on the side. Using aqueous graphite, Lee expresses the epidermis of the world outside the window that runs horizontally, vertically, upwards, and downwards. Her depicted world approaches us like an enlarged part of a leaf, a split part of a stem, the middle of a column, or perhaps a forest. Layers overlap and eventually transition into an abstract world by covering each other up. From a distance, it may seem like a simple grayscale area. But as you get closer, the fragments and layers of the screen become intertwined and create an indistinguishable sculptural illusion: a latent fetus that is cored on the retina that will unravel itself. 

The other side of the screen is looking at me as it slides down by gravity and climbs up with its stretching vine's hand. I try to understand the time unfolded by the artist as not a mere media variation or painter’s play. I thought of the artist who ponders the future of her work that will be acclaimed and the lonely path of the remaining work, and the life cycle of paper, which was born as a tree and eventually became a paper all crumpled and torn. I silently overlap myself who wants to urge the precocious artist to hold onto her vivid youth.