Korean Artist Ukn Lee

I had the chance to meet and work with Korean artist UKN LEE at an art fair in Türkiye last May. I was impressed by the works I had the chance to see and his use of materials. The artist has been living in Germany for many years and recently opened his solo exhibition. I interviewed him about his exhibition and works that will last until mid-November.

Artist UKN LEE and I - Art Fair in İstanbul ( Photo:Ece YILDIRIM)

Could you please introduce yourself?

Ukn Lee was born in Seoul in 1963 and studied painting at Chu-Gye Art University in Seoul. After several years of scholarship, he goes to the College of Fine Arts in Brunswick Germany. That's where he's a master's student. Professor Norbert Tadeusz. In 2001, he was invited to his old college as a professor and returned. Since 2009, he has lived and worked in Berlin and Seoul. He took part in more than 30 solo exhibitions, 15 Art Fairs, and numerous group exhibitions in Canada, Germany, Holland, Austria, South Korea, Poland, Japan, and the United States.

What inspired you to become a painter?

Since I was young (in elementary school), I liked to draw, and I often took my painting tools outside by myself. One time, I pulled the water flowing through the valley, and the sound was so loud that I couldn't continue to paint, but as time passed I felt the stillness. Maybe I was focused on painting and didn't feel the sound. Perhaps this was the reason why I still continued painting.

Tell us about your exhibition.

For the first exhibition as a Korean at the Museum of Art (Museum Schloss Bad Pyrmont), I worked hard for more than two years. It achieved the desire to match the oil painting work on the traditional hanbok fabric, which has been carried out for more than 20 years, to the ancient city of Europe.

Perhaps, this was an opportunity for me to confirm my presence as a Korean writer who left Korea and worked in Europe.

At the opening of the exhibition, about 150 special guests, Mayor Bad Pyrmont, Museum Foundation Chairman, Museum Director, Michael Stöber, Critic, and Berliners, I am deeply grateful to the collectors of each region of Germany, fellow artists and acquaintances who participated in the group exhibition, and especially the art fans who were willing to visit from abroad on a short schedule. Above all, I would like to thank Dr. Mehring, who invited me to the exhibition, and Michael Stoeber, a critic who gave me an unconventional review for more than 30 minutes.

Two young Bariton singers, Sam Park and Robin Park, from Berlin, received a lot of applause from the audience for their exhibition celebrations. If the exhibition runs until November, there will be two artist meetings and a presentation in September that will serve as an outdoor installation event. A Korean film screening will also be scheduled.

Ukn Lee Exhibition

“Unwirklichkeit und Realität“ 18. July - 17.November 2024

Museum im Schloss Bad Pyrmont, Germany 

The artist's paintings have a very unique style. What inspired you?

“Lee is a devoted painter with a singular conception of images. For him, his works are memories that resemble living organisms. They evolve with him and are in principle unfinished for him. Frequent overpaintings bear witness to this. Lee's paintings are in this way palimpsests of lived life. “

Simply put, I intentionally keep the picture unfinished. I also continue a new image or shape on that basis through my own superposition technique, so I work to capture and erase the human memory system in the picture. Memory is an imperfect body, and its combination is very abstract and will eventually disappear like the wind.

Does the use of Hanbok fabric have any special meaning?

It has been more than 20 years since I used hanbok fabric, and the previous work theme was mainly "Mother and Son." I visited Korea by chance and found a sickle I met a grandmother who runs a hanbok store there and at that moment, I found Hanbokcheon as a substitute for my mother who I wanted to catch. Since then, there have been many trials and errors in the technical part of applying oil painting to hanbok fabric, but I have increasingly found it to be a more attractive material in many ways than canvases.

Currently, hanbok fabric is mainly used, which is donated by people who have kept it for a long time, and the delicateness of the material and the stories of the donors are combined to make the work special from the beginning. The charm and strength of hanbok fabric lie in the strength of the fabric and its delicate colors and patterns, as well as its infinite possibilities due to the projection of light.

What are your plans for the future? And what would you like to say to people around the world?

Through this exhibition, I would like to continue to develop Hanbok-Art on the Hanbok Stream in various ways. This was learned in the process of overcoming the limitations of installing works in historic Goseong, and it will cover all areas of the installation along with light, not just the existing form of exhibition in which paintings are displayed on walls. I am now preparing for a completely discriminatory possibility for the next exhibition.

Lastly, I hope you will give them a lot of support and encouragement through this article when you see the reality that many writers are working hard in foreign countries after leaving Korea.