Lee Jaeseok Korea, b. 1989

Lee Jaeseok has been exploring the subject of similarities between human bodies and objects for several years based on his own experiences in the military service. It is important to contemplate the significance and implication of signs in Lee’s works for understanding his outlook. Signs appeared even in his prior works could be seen as ‘the second name’ schematically given by the artist to several means such as machines, goods or even temporarily confined people under strict order to achieve an ideal goal the peculiar group sought.

In recent works, he managed to expand spatial staging of the painting by engaging with the elements of the universe such as the moon, solar eclipse and the law of gravity. The sophisticated adaptation of visually familiar landscape without exaggeration allows his paintings to have a sense of silence as composed as the vacant space they have. His artistic practice which mysteriously portrays boundaries between individuality and society, regulation and desire, and life and mortality represents the pure power of universal stories.

Lee Jaeseok received BFA and MFA from Mokwon University in Korea. His solo exhibitions have been presented by Chapter II (2023), Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) Storage (2021) and he has included in group exhibitions at Gallery Baton (2023), Gwangju Museum of Art (2022), Seoul National University Museum of Art (2022), Space K (2020), Daejeon Museum of Art (2019). His works are in the collections of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea and Daejeon Museum of Art, Korea.