LEE Jinyong

Arario Gallery presents the solo exhibition of artist, Jinyong Lee who has worked without the rest during the past 35 years, Jinyong Lee is the artist gifted with the excellent genius of which no man matches him in the drawing, especially the painting power describing the objects or the landscape and used to win the prize several times in the National Art Exhibition with the painting works in the high school. He who did so tried the change of materials into the sculpturing works in the year when he became 20 years old and then he has concentrated his efforts on the three dimensional sculpturing work over 20 years. But, in this exhibition, Jinyong Lee shows total 20 painting works around and 5 sculpturing works as returning the painting works again.

Jinyong Lee himself uses the word of “work rationalization.” He has lived so far while sacrificing and rationalizing himself, whatever it is for the works. He has lived while not laying down his brush from his hand in the same way over the decades and has not thought even a time that he has labored while completing the work continuously requiring the long time. Though he has the genius, he personally practices that the efforts with patience are the essential factor of the artists who live as the artists for their whole lives. At last, the passion as the artist which is the lifelong occupation given to him is the motive force making it possible that he labors for the long time.

An artist who saw him who strived to work for this exhibition while not getting off to sleep at Jeju-Island studio of Arario called him as "Superman". Although the external character coming from the hair style that a stripe of hair comes down on the forehead of Jinyong Lee also reminds him of the superman, it is the nickname easily nodded in seeing his passion for working.

What are firstly reviewed in understanding the art works by Jinyong Lee are the objects as per the list collected by him. His drawings look very much like these objects collected by him. They are the objects showing up the wonderful figure fully filled with the traces of time due that they are old. The phonograph, the clock and the old book, etc made from 1800's to 1900's, which may be watched even at the auction give the beauty of being worn rather than the feeling of being worn due that they are old.

The quite and the warmth sent forth from these old objects are reappeared at the works by Jinyong Lee. Being natural like them is absolutely different and even noble, which cannot be felt at the new things or the brand commodities. Accordingly, such being old-fashioned felt in his art works is as solid as it is difficult to know which one is his old collected object or which one is his art work(the sculpturing works made similarly to the old objects as specially coloring on the three-dimensional sculpture).

The art works by Jinyong Lee are like a passage making the spectator go to the remembrance. The disappearing objects which cannot be seen in the digital ages provides the modern people the opportunity that they can look back again. The works by Jingyong Lee which made these disappearing objects into the painting works on the large screen or the large sculpture again give us the warmth. They play a role like the passage of remembrance calling the remembrances in the childhood from the old memories. Although there are the different emotion every person, the objects which the adults in the childhood or our ancestors used, which are dimly remembered, look like the works of art which we can easily take and accordingly which are rare.

Jinyong Lee has collected the large and the small things with the pleasures of finding out the old and worn-out objects in the age and uses them as the subject matters of works. Especially, he is interested in the wonderful inventions in the past like the book, the clock, the typewriter, the electricity and the train, etc which have informed the start of modern civilization and moved up. He wants to express the valuableness of objects which are slowly changed in the flow of time and contains the memories and the surprisingness of old things as describing these small things in the works carefully. In this way, he unfolds the extremely subjective story of Jinyong Lee and also the history he has passed by. The collected things filled in the workroom of the artist which are reappeared provide the opportunity that the spectators can understand the artist more familiarly.

The representative work of this exhibition is the large-sized work named as 'the Nature in My Drawer'. The basic framework of this work with the width of 7m and the height of 3.2m is the extra-large drawer and total about 1,000 images of the different books are painted at every partition of drawer. The images of book varies from the history of the natural science like the Cretaceous period in the Mesozoic Age and Edison, etc to the books of the artists such as Rodin, Gogh and Picasso, etc and the Bible. Even it is surprising to draw these 1,000 books with the separate hair pencil but 300 drawers were manufactured to be opened and closed like the actual drawers. If you open the drawer, you can find out that it is filled with the subject matters making the contents of book drawn in front of that drawer known. For example, there are the bones or the fossils, etc in the book of the Cretaceous period in the Mesozoic Age and if you open the drawer of Modigliani, you can find out that it is filled with ‘woman portrait’, the masterpiece of Modigliani and the pictures of the artist, Modigliani. There are Kant and the old clocks filled with the architectonic power in the book drawer of Kant. This art work is installed at the exhibition hall in order for the spectator to directly open it and the real thrill that you can open the upper partition of high drawer after going up as using the ladder also will be provided.

This exhibition, especially as the private exhibition which Jinyong Lee has as the first for 4 years, provides the important opportunity to experience the changed world of his art. Please enjoy the pleasure of time along with the delight finding out the homesickness of the past in the objects with the old memories such as the worn-out books, the clocks, the curio cameras and the backs, etc carefully described in his newest works