Page 6 - 當代藝術展覽企劃書

SIMYO GALLERY : Lee Hi-Yong (b.1967)

Lee Hi-Yong’s painting of Goryeo Dynasty celadon and Joseon
Dynasty white porcelains have been constantly evolving since he first
resumed the theme in the early 2000s. Lee’s painstakingly time-
consuming pencil work evokes the viewer of Asian tradition literati
paintings in that he takes the process of his work, not to “paint” but
to as a “discipline” onto itself. To Lee, the innumerable repetition of
short strokes of lines with pencil is in fact equivalent to a meditative

act of cleansing his mind. In his work, antique forms of celadon and
porcelains are coaxed to life, rendered almost to be breathing with
Lee’s masterful technical skill achieved by the exacting precision
of incalculable stroke marks which ironically at first glance, does not
show any efforts of a human hand.
Although Lee’s pencil work can be misread as black and white
photography, upon closer examination, what he intended was not a
hyper-realistic depiction by itself. Lee wanted to express a myriad of
layers in time and trace history from stains and marks on the surface

of the porcelains and provide a quiet moment with the viewer to look
back on their own sense of time.
In recent years, Lee has been receiving significantly increased
attention in the art world. Selected exhibition venues include Kunst
18 in Zurich, Jebiri Museum in Gangneung, Chuncheon Cultural
Foundation in Chuncheon, and Seoul Arts Center in Seoul.