- ProgramDOOSAN Yonkang Arts Awards
- Artist Yunsung Lee
NU-FRAME
2015
Installation view
DOOSAN Gallery Seoul presents NU-FRAME, a solo exhibition by Yunsung Lee, from November 25th to December 26th, 2015. Winner of the 5th Doosan Artist Award in 2014, Lee re-contextualizes Greek mythology and biblical narratives from Western art history in Japanese Manga archetype. In a new type of work by Lee, well known iconographic figures from masterpieces like The Last Judgment, The Annunciation, and Laocoon transform into pretty girls in Japanese Manga style, whose limbs are mutilated and blood splatter and spurt out in a whirlpool that fills up the entire painting.
In this exhibition, Lee shows a triptych of a pretty girl jumping with various expressions in the background of pouring golden rain, inspired by the Greek mythological figure Danae. Typically portrayed with Zeus who is transfigured as golden rain and looming over her, Danae is usually rendered as an obedient and passive figure. However, Danae transformed in Japanese manga style demonstrates universal human emotions like joy, sorrow, anger, anxiety, disgust and surprise. The various faces and bodies of Danae, as well as the golden rain, are portrayed in the rectangular canvases all in their own different shape. Like the different frames put together to create one page in a manga, the small canvases come together to both connect and divide the space in the work.
Other works in the exhibition include various forms of canvases, 6 separate faces of Danae, and the triptych. Lee’s painterly experimentation in deconstructing and constructing the different elements expand beyond his paintings, into the very space of the exhibition itself.
Yunsung Lee (b. 1985) received his B.F.A. in painting from Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Korea. He has held solo exhibitions at DOOSAN Gallery New York (2016, New York, NY, U.S.A), DOOSAN Gallery Seoul (2015, Seoul, Korea) and MAKESHOP ART SPACE (2014, Paju, Korea). His works have also included in group exhibitions at COMMON CENTER (2014, Seoul, Korea), Gallery Jinsun (2014, Seoul, Korea), MAKESHOP ART SPACE (2013, Paju, Korea), Eugene Gallery (2012, Seoul, Korea), TEAM PREVIEW (2011, Seoul, Korea), Gallery THROUGH (2011, Seoul, Korea), and GONGPYEONG ART (2010, Seoul, Korea).