Lee Jin Woo

Lee Jin Woo
White Cube – Until Sep 07, 2024 (Hong Kong)

White Cube is pleased to present the first-ever solo exhibition in Hong Kong of Paris-based Korean artist Lee Jin Woo. Deeply immersed in traditional Korean aesthetics, Lee’s paintings and works on paper are framed by philosophical enquiry and driven by artistic intuition. Regarding abstraction as an entry point to the universal, the artist seeks to induce a state close to meditation in the consciousness of the viewer through his work. The result of total submission to an ascetic process engaging mind, body and spirit, the artworks engender a heightened physical awareness and are themselves an embodiment of a sentient, ‘breathing’ presence.

Group of Korean painters.

Adhering to the principles of minimal gesture, formal repetition and humbling physical labour, Lee’s art extends from Dansaekhwa, a movement involving a group of Korean painters who emerged during the 1970s and notably included Park Seo-Bo and Lee Ufan. Further to a conceptual exercise, Lee approaches his work materially by drawing his principal mediums from the earth and transforming these through ritualised repetition. Subjecting charcoal and hanji – a traditional Korean paper made from the bark of mulberry tree – to a painstaking process of transformation, abstract ‘landscapes’ emerge: mutable and profoundly contemplative, these paintings evoke a sense of endless space. As Lee has commented, ‘Once I am at my painting, I become an arm that paints. My hand is the extension of my brain and I stop thinking. My work is intuitive. I walk in imaginary landscapes, [and] move forward.’

White Cube→  50 Connaught Road Central – Hong Kong, Hong Kong

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Current Exhibit