Gallery KICHE, Lee Dong Hyuk
Has an Ear, 2024
Work Area: Poster, Web Invitation, Etc.
Client: Gallery KICHE
Poster︎︎︎
2000 × 2000px
KICHE holds Lee Dong Hyuk’s solo exhibition 《Has an Ear》 from April 4 - May 11. The exhibition title, ‘He who has ears, let him hear,’ is directly taken from the Bible, referring to a situation where one passively listens and accepts without being able to speak. Texts found in The Book of Revelation (Chapters 1-6) are at the center of Lee’s new body of work. Lee is interested in capturing the ongoing controversy of its translation and interpretation in Revelation, the only apocalyptic literature included in the canon.
In this exhibition, Lee Dong Hyuk explores 'multi-translations' within the frames of painting that occur differently depending on one’s perspective during the process of understanding and translating the original texts. Such transition of moving away from images of abandoned churches to the realm of texts highlights the main difference of Lee’s new series. Rather than simply emphasizing the narratives, Lee’s 20 new presentations of work deconstruct and recontextualize images and symbols, engaging with compositions of the frames and contrasts of color and brushstrokes within a uniform brown hue.
Lee Dong Hyuk’s paintings, composed of divided scenes with multiple perspectives, never fully reveal the whole. Some paintings are intentionally hung in sets or as collections; despite being interconnected, they do not conclude as one scenery but continuously extend and construct new narratives. Together, Lee's paintings revolve around specific imagery from texts, paintings, and illustrations found in the classic, while referencing their unique painterly approaches and methodologies - leading viewers to a point of intersection where classics and modernity, familiarity and strangeness, figurative and abstract meet carefully.
“ the way the artist uses images does not stop within the canvas but expands their narrative possibilities beyond it. Although the icons he introduces are religious symbols and therefore already have their narrative quality, the way they appear repeatedly in different canvases with varying angles and compositions creates a cinematic sequence. If the frame, an external system, tries to bind the significance to the internal image, the images that continue beyond the canvas extend the gaze outward, not into the canvas. Even in the divided spaces, the parts that originate from one source and are segmented or stand at different angles make the frame of the painting rather more impressionable, allowing the gaze to reach the empty spaces between the canvases. This structure creates a slippage between sequences rather than completing the narrative, reinforcing the multiple narrativity inherent in iconography. In this formulation, serial thinking in the exhibition extends to icons, canvas, and even spatial approaches.”
Partial excerpt from ‘Ponder and create outside of faith’ by Kim Sung woo, Independent Curator.
Applications︎︎︎
Handout (Floor Plan / Text)
