Lee Jaeseok: Exceptionally complex, yet elegantly engineered.

Gallery Baton is pleased to announce Exceptionally Complex, Yet Elegantly Engineered., a solo exhibition by Lee Jaeseok (b. 1989) from 23 August to 27 September 2023 in Hannam-dong space. The exhibition provides an inspiring opportunity to discover a new series of works by Lee Jaeseok, who has expanded his interests from aspects of uniformed lifestyle within the social system towards the mechanism of nature and the universe and how it is perceived.

'The laws of nature' indicate 'the intrinsic logic of every object', inclusively referring to principles and manners of how the phenomenal world operates. The gravitational force—allowing each existence, including human beings, to be present and function in the peculiar terrestrial circumstance—had been a challenging research subject by numerous scientists even before Newton’s law. Among them, Leonardo da Vinci was a widely known pioneer deeply fascinated by the mystery of gravity through the constant observation of falls and the flight of birds. His extensive exploration and ground-breaking discoveries in various fields of art and science must have required his persistent study and analysis of fundamental natural laws, as his collection of papers, 『Codex Arundel』, demonstrates. 

The mechanism of gravity that takes a clear part in not only interaction among all objects but the constancy of the universe has a significant influence on Lee’s practice either directly or indirectly. The diagram of a tent and a shade reminiscent of a structural manual of industrial goods, a delicate consideration of centroid and equilibrium of each element in his paintings, and a sophisticated adaptation of landscapes without hyperbole reveal that the described spaces are fragments of reality. The black and white sphere surrounded by an aura, which appeared as Lee’s spatial staging began to include the cosmic domain, is a factor enlightening viewers to be aware that the depicted sceneries and images still are under the umbrella of general physical phenomena. For instance, in the series of Alignment (2023), the tight balance between the main figurative agents dividing the upper and below parts of the entire plane implies the gravitational pull of the moon causing the tides.

On the other hand, the shape of a tree stump or a bough seems to be suspended amid the air against gravity in Carrier_1, 2 (2023), breaking the physics; this surreal composition signifies that the painted scene does not belong to commonsense space and time and the floating objects do not necessarily follow the practical causal laws. When he designed digital game items in the past, Lee was astonished by a colony of pixels playing a role in an individual entity. The experience turned out as the tree figures, whose life cycles seemingly run out, have potential in phase transition or a new life’s beginning as considerable as their evident volume show.

Looking closely into the frequently appearing symbols and their undertones is the best way to grasp Lee’s practice and overview. Having emerged since his early works and conveyed his experiences during military service, the signs are ‘the second title’ tagged onto machines and products produced or people temporarily confined to maintain the efficient and stable system of the unusual military community. Interestingly, he deliberately exposes hierarchical dynamics in his paintings since hidden clues for understanding them are hardly delivered without additional explanation due to their particular limits as a closed two-dimensional medium. Also, this approach corresponds to the fact that the motifs of symbols of his works originally stemmed from the impassible institution, the army.

Lee Jaeseok(b. 1989) received a BFA and an MFA from Mokwon University in Korea. He has held solo exhibitions at Chapter II, Seoul (2023); Seoul Museum of Art(SeMA) Storage, Seoul (2021); and M2 Project Room at Lee Ungno Museum, Daejeon (2018). He has included in group exhibitions at Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul (2023); Ha Jung-woong Museum of Art, Gwangju Museum of Art, Gwangju (2022); Seoul National University Museum of Art, Seoul (2022); Woljeon Museum of Art Icheon, Icheon (2021); Space K, Seoul (2020); Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon (2019). His work is represented in the collections of Art Bank, Daejeon Museum of Art, CNCITY Energy, KOLON Corp. and etc.