The Department of Fine Art, Seoul National University, Korea, BFA

The Department of Fine Art, Seoul National University, Korea, MFA

Korean literature& language, Ewha women’s University, Korea, BA

Solo Exhibitions

2023 GalleryMEME

2020 GalleryMEME

2014 Apr, Salon de H gallery

2012 Oct , Ujung art center

2011 Aug , Pyogallery south

2009 Jan , Gallery LaMer,

Mar extended exhibition, The street gallery, GS gangnam tower, Seoul

Group Exhibitions

2019

gallery GURU

<11 Pleasures>, gallery chung

gwangju lotte gallery

2018

Baekhak museum

Lee Kyoungha, Lee Manna Duo show, Make gallery

Lee Kyoungha, Kim Jeimin Duo Show, GalleryMEME

Known Ulgiro

2017

Seoul museum

superior gallery

2016

< SOMA Drawing: Mindfull, Mindless>, SOMA Museum

Miboo Art center

2015

Boklim building

Ilwoo space

Pyogallery L.A.

nonbat gallery

GalleryMEME

2014

duo exhibition, gallery fourwalls

duo exhibition, gallery chung

2^nd new artist project, 63 Sky art museum

2013

janghung art park

gold coast art gallery, Gold coast, Austrailia

Hangil gallery

artspaceH

gallery eppoch

2012

Ujung gallery

Bookhouse gallery

bentz auto gallery

2011

gallery art factory

st party> ujung gallery

126st. mansion

white block gallery

Hyundai Motors&Pyogallery

vit gallery, Seoul

2010

guemsan gallery

Hakgojae gallery

duo exhibition, Gallery Eon, Seoul

Kepco Plaza gallery, Seoul

trio exhibition, Gallery LVS, Seoul

2009

IYAP 2009 IYAP2009(Interalia young artist promotion,

inter-alia art company, Seoul

Leekyoungha&Oheunjung ,duo exhibition, Pyogallery Seoul

Sempyo Space, Icheon, Kyungkido

Avenual Lotte Art gallery, Moonwha ilbo gallery, Seoul

Awards

2013 Selected for Exhibition ‘Sky Art New Artist Project’

2012 Janghung artelier residency

2011 Ujung residency

2010 Soma drawing center archive registry artist

2010 Pyo gallery new&rising artist award prizewinner

Collections

National museum of modern & contemporary art, korea

Eulji Universiy Medical Center

POSRI, Samsungdong, Seoul

Rafarge halla cement

Tomato Mutual Savings Bank

Artist’s Note

There is a fear I sometimes face as I live on. As I sit on the sea shore alone gazing at the waves endlessly breaking against the land, or when I suddenly discover that there is no one around me in a summer forest and I hear all sorts of noises from nature amidst the silence, I feel this fear. When I was very young, there was a time when I was playing in the sea floating on a rubber tube. There was this moment that I had went a little further out, and could see nothing but water around me. Thinking that no one would know even if I just disappeared, I rushed back to the beach shivering in terror. I wanted to paint the waves, which had completely overwhelmed me at the time.

I wanted to paint the waves as an endlessly moving and alive, but never changing existence, rather than something with specific shape, direction and temporality. The characteristics I wanted to reveal could only be represented by extracting a certain essential aspect of the object called waves. It seemedthat if I represented the waves with a certain kind of blue, or depicted them realistically, they would no longer move, but just become fixed in the appearance of an instant. My objective was not to paint the waves at a particular beach of the East Sea, but to paint the waves themselves, which have been there since the beginning of Earth. Charcoal was the appropriate material to reveal such intention. The image created by endlessly repeating the process of rubbing on and erasing acquired the properties of drawing, making the object less stationary. Moreover, by eliminating colors, I thought I could capture the more essential appearance of the subject, making particular aspects of time or concreteness disappear. I use charcoal to draw the spaces forming the backgrounds of my works, such as the sea, grass fields, forests, sky, trees and land. The work is then completed by arranging human figures or objects on this background with color painting, to create a certain narrative. The stories I create through the positions, sizes and acts of the human figures in the works have gradually changed since 2008.

The people in the paintingsblankly gaze at gigantic nature,appearing as little dots on a vast land spreading out endlessly, or silently walk along their given paths, undaunted by the fierce storm. Sometimes I would paint construction workers building something on the background of nature, or paint workersapplying a very artificial colors to an empty space filled with clouds. By creating a sense of difference on the picture-plane, made by the clash between the human figures and nature, I intended to show the stark contrast between the artificial and natural, the finite and infinite, eternity and moment. Since 2014, I have minimized the contrasting effect of humans and nature, significantly reducing the size of the human figures, while increasing the proportion of the background. Rather than striving to make the figure stand out against the background space, I let itget absorbed in the space. The figures were very small, but portrayed to have individuality and each engaged in his/her activity.I wanted to show even if life has given itself to gigantic cosmic order and the flow of time, the life of an individual goes on with its own independent narrative, no matter who it is.

Recently I have been paying attention to the grass sprouting from the land, growing, disappearing and growing back. Rather than theindividual grass leaves themselves, it was the endless loop of circulationthat touched my heart—the way new sprouts would emerge from the soil, grow for a while, and then become dry pieces of straw. For me, nature is eternity, immortality and infinity. By making a barren ground and coloring in new sprouts and dead leaves, I wanted to reveal the immortal energy being repeated eternally in nature and the universe. The grass symbolizes humans and all finite things that disappear. But as they are endlessly reborn, they will eventually become one with the nature in the background, which is immortal.

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