Opening Reception: Thursday, May 19th, 6-8 pm

DOOSAN Gallery New York, 533 W 25^th St., New York, NY 10001

DOOSAN Gallery New York is pleased to present the solo exhibition of Yunsung Lee, a recipient of the 5th annual DOOSAN Artist Award, from May 19th through June 23rd, 2016. 
 
This exhibition comprises of <NU-TYPE>, which takes subject matter from Western master paintings reinterpreted into Japanese animation form, as well as <NU-FRAME>, which is an exploration of painterly and figurative methods of expression. Thus, the exhibition is titled “NU,” to represent the selection of works on display.
 
Yunsung Lee has been using the subculture within Korean culture that was brought in from Japan as the material for his work, reconstituting the subject into fine art.
  
His early series <NU-TYPE> stands for “new humanity,” a terminology that is borrowed from Japanese animation. The artist joins together the specific recurrent styles within traditional Western painting with recurrent cliche’s from Japanese comics and animation, attempting to overcome their distinctions and disparities in order to search for and seek out a new form and language of painting.
 
In his later series <NU-FRAME>, Lee applies the method of segmenting the frame as used in comic books and digital games into his paintings. Comics and digital games both consider how to depict three-dimensional worlds into a two dimensional surface, and in that way it is similar to Western painting. However, as the artist employs the method of frame segmentation that naturally developed within the Japanese comic world into his canvases, he is able to suggest a new visual language and point of view.
 
For instance, in Danae (2015), the canvas is divided into three segments, then Danae’s two opposing facial expressions are juxtaposed within two canvases. Then, homogenous colors are layered onto the surface, removing a sense of traditional perspective, creating a very flat image.
 
Recently, as the subculture of Japanese comics and online games become more mainstream, there has been an emergence within Korean contemporary art to use these as the context and subject matter of their work. This exhibition will provide a unique opportunity to observe this current situation and its future direction. 
 
Yunsung Lee (b. 1985) received his B.F.A in Painting from Chungang University. He has held solo exhibitions at 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), GalleryJinsun (2014, Seoul, Korea), Makeshop Art Space (2013, Paju, Korea), LEE EUGEAN GALLERY (2012, Seoul, Korea), Alternative space TEAM PREVIEW (2011, Seoul, Korea), Gallery THROUGH (2011, Seoul, Korea), and GONGPYEONG ARTCENTER GONGPYEONG GALLERY (2010, Seoul, Korea).