Lee, Kang Wook

Kang Wook Lee foreword

Double Negation: Kang Wook Lee’s Recent Paintings

Dr. Sook-Kyung Lee (Curator, Tate Liverpool, UK)

Delicately drawn lines and pale colour patches are floating on the surface of paintings. Oval and rectangular forms are emerging in different sizes and at times incomplete, just suggestive enough of these forms, and at other times overlapping each other as if repeating itself in spatial successions. In another group of paintings, grain-like tiny ovals are multiplying in seemingly infinite numbers, resembling the fractal growth of natural forms, which are at once abstract and organic.

Kang Wook Lee’s work might seem relatively unchanged in terms of its colour tones and abstract forms since his last solo exhibition in 2007. Geometric forms and patterns are more dominant in some works and composition looks more solid, but his exploration of the relativity of perception and ‘invisible space’ seems still relevant, and his apparently effortless execution of imaginary landscape could also be found in the organic spaces of the most recent paintings.

However, there is a decidedly distinctive approach to the images in Lee’s recent paintings, which is the amalgamation, or synthesis, of opposites, rather than their simple dualism. Whilst his previous paintings emphasised the paradoxical resemblance of microscopic world and cosmic space, Lee’s recent paintings seem to explore a kind of universal order innate in these opposite worlds, allowing controlled yet self-generating patterns and forms to extend what the artist has started with the initial composition. The paintings sustain abstract forms Lee skilfully executed but their subsequent developments seem purposefully encouraged, making organic yet ordered growths possible. Furthermore, it is noticeable that Lee engages his own physical existence in the making of the work in the latest paintings, marking gestures and bodily movements in several heavily executed pencil lines. Painting seems to be the right medium for Lee, where its limitation becomes necessary condition for his controlled yet open-ended creation.

Lee’s personal understanding of the recent work also resonates with the change we notice in new paintings. The artist’s recent interest in ‘Upanishads’, the ancient Hindu philosophy texts, offers an insight, particularly in relation to its world view. According to the Upanishads, there are two important concepts in grasping the world, ‘Brahman’ that is the universal spirit and ‘Atman’ that is the individual self. The idea put forth by the Upanishadic seers that Brahman and Atman are one and the same is widely regarded as one of the greatest contributions made to the thought of the world. The inherent unity between the seeming opposites and the inevitable possibility of synthesis between the most universal and the most particular seem to have provided the artist the appropriate answer he had been looking for several years.

Like his move to London, Lee’s interest in the Hindu philosophy could be seen as incidental or circumstantial at best in understanding his recent paintings. What’s important, however, is his renewed interest in dealing with the opposite worlds of the bigger universe through this thought, where his own presence is as significant and relevant as all things big and small. Whilst his previous paintings represented the mystery of the universe in its paradoxical dualism, Lee’s recent paintings display the enlightening moment he experienced in understanding the Upanishads, in acquiring the knowledge of the self in this incomprehensive universe. However insignificant this might be to the viewer, it seems profoundly important to the artist to appreciate his space in the world and communicate it within his paintings.

© Sook-Kyung Lee