이상권 : 불완전한 풍경

The artist, Sangkwon Lee, prepared this solo exhibition that shows whether he could express the meaning and aesthetic elements of the landscape. Since the past four years after moving his studio to Paju, Gyeonggi, Lee began to move away from themes that inspired him in his earlier works: the city, daily life, and figure. Instead, his observation and appreciation focused on the natural landscape of Paju. For instance, the whole screen consists of city life, turns into the road, which passes through the trees, stones, and forests. Furthermore, regardless of the size of the subject, each image is expressed delicately and spread through the canvas evenly, thus it will attract our attention. However, Lee’s attitude towards, as an artist, shows a consistent look in observation and reproduction, reflection and search.

In his tree series, Lee places a gigantic tree at the center of the painting. Through this conduct he tries to express his concern of how to describe nature. The road drags along to the horizon and twist around and the landscape inside the road resembles with the tree. In the repeated daily life, the remembered landscape overlaps with the scene that includes time, experience and memories is mixed with present feeling.

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In this series of Lee’s landscape, the general perspective was drawn large for the close object and small for the distant object, however if you look closely, the object whether it’s close or far away from him are expressed in very homogeneous brush touches and colors. In consequence, there is no difference in the distance between objects except for the size of objects. There is no discrimination in front, back, center, neither surroundings. These images filled with various sizes of color, reveal their presence simultaneously. Fascinatingly, there are four seasons of natural scenery on the screen, with eyes move shortly to widely, from the center to the surroundings and returns. To illustrate, numerous roads are stretched out with the trees and stones are densely located between the roads. These pavements transform into a pine tree twisted by the wind. Also, the vacant land is filled with stones and trees. Therefore, hundreds of viewpoints are mixed and intersected on a single screen.

Lee disassembles familiar features of the subjects and reconstructs them using several colors, brush strokes and complex veining directions. The complexity of constantly changing the size and direction of light and color seems to be a formative feature of Sangkwon Lee’s landscape. Initially, the audience who encounter the image that is mixed with diverse angle and point of view, won’t be able to focus on the picture due to the illusion of shaking. For this reason, the forest, path and rock will appear in a flat view.

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Painting of Landscape usually desires depth. Specifically, this profundity is thought and expressed not only by the outside but also by the inner scenery. Unlike the precedence landscape work, this is rearranged based on the artist's individual experiences and directed towards a special impression and meaning.

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In this exhibition, Lee’s series persistently thinking about the theme of "Depth" that he felt in the scenery. In this case, 'Depth' has little connection to an object’s stationary state; here, it is a metaphor of a downward movement. The way Lee thought about depth means a state of constant movement which perfectly combines with his work of arts. In which, the combination of depth and size creates the sublime. Movement triggers and drives another movement. What can be measured and perceived aesthetic depth?

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Nature has its own time and speed. Usually, 'History' means not just time divided and combined, but the myriad factors that make up life are organically associated, interpreted and reproduced. For this reason, Lee’s work is organized with time. It seems as if the image of the world segmented in a plurality of dimensions is reconstructed through mosaic or montage. This landscape is a collection of images in which the state of motion is operating in a complex direction.

In the works, audiences find the typical scenery of the metropolitan area where urbanization is processed in a short period. The scene is an irregular mixture of the urban and rural areas, as well as mixed-pot of tradition and modern. Simultaneously, the order and culture of tradition is roughly dismantled, and a new order and culture is introduced violently. Over time, when the order and culture of a new species intertwined with the past and the present appear, we could recognize the object of the new landscape painting. Overall, Lee’s landscape calmly reproduces this change in Paju. Following these steps, Sangkwon Lee endures the weight of time and depth