Artists
South Korea
Seungyoun Lee
Flowing Roots, Scratched-out Beings
19.11.24 20.12.24
Seungyoun Lee is a Korean artist who came to ´ace as part of the agreement we hold with ARKO—Arts Council Korea. She studied Design in Korea and Narrative Environments in the UK. Enjoying strange and fascinating stories that stretch the imagination, the narrative (such as ancient history, myths, or tales about shamans, zombies, and aliens) is an important part of her work. Recently, Seungyoun has been interested in forest ecology and writing. During her time at ´ace, she worked on a series of drypoint engravings that she printed and then draw on top, thus making each piece unique. These prints depicted mythological and forest creatures, some of which resembled known animals, and others that stemmed from her mind and onto the paper.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I believe in the power of stories, and they are central to my work. I dream of being a storyteller who writes and draws, constantly reimagining the world to create new narratives and images. My nomadic lifestyle –traveling across Europe, Central America, and North Africa– has expanded the materials, methods, and themes in my art. I explore civilization and mythology through different works where I turned everyday people’s stories into unique gods using rusted metal and acrylic. Tapestries and videos reflect my impressions of foreign landscapes, while shaky and rough visuals express the uncertainty of understanding other cultures. During the pandemic, I imagined a new paradise combining performance, music, and a large installation. My recent linocut work, inspired by an ancient tree in Mexico, explores life’s cycles of decay and renewal. I often combine small drawings into larger works, letting the final image endlessly transform. I see the artist’s role today as creating, erasing, and rewriting –like a modern palimpsest– crafting new stories for our time.
BIO
Seungyoun Lee
1982 | Seoul, Korea
Lives and works in Seoul, Korea
EDUCATION
2013 | MA Central Saint Martins. University of the Arts London, UK
EXHIBITIONS
2024 | Dear My Forest. National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Children’s Gallery, Gwacheon, Korea
2023 | Yokai Encyclopedia. Icheon Woljeon Museum of Art, Icheon, Korea
2023 | Sea in the Clouds. Dohyangri Gallery, Paris, France
2022 | Vivid Transformation: The Language in Between. Kim Hong-do Museum, Ansan, Korea
2021 | Channel: The Moment Particles Become Waves. Changwon International Sculpture Biennale Preview Exhibition, Seongsan Art Hall, Changwon, Korea
AWARDS
2024 | Arts Council Korea Overseas Residency Grant
2022 | Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation Vivid TransformationCreative Art Support Grant
2021 | Arts Council Korea International Exchange Fund
2021 | Selected Artist, Art Gyeonggi, Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation
2019 | Excellence in Publishing Content Selection for Lucy and Diamond, Korea Publication Industry Promotion Agency
Related Activities
´aceNITE, Exhibitions, Open Studio
Shared Territories: Resonances, Layers and Echoes
Artists in Dialogue
11.12.24
On December 11th, 2024, we bid farewell to the year with an ´aceNITE in which we were able to learn about the processes of the residents from November-December, share delicacies and toast to the closing of the year and the beginning of a new one. Along with our guests, the local public came to the ´ace studio to talk with the residents and share a night of rich and nutritious conversations.
Iván Rivelli (El Bolsón, Argentina) occupied The Tower studio with his multichannel sound installation Acoustics of the Ground. Intermediate affectations. There, Iván, a Production Residency fellow thanks to the Semillero 2024 Grant (in collaboration with the Williams Foundation), shared a sound installation with 4 listening stations and a map of the routes that the artist made with his geophone to record the underground sounds of the City of Buenos Aires.
Solin Yoon (South Korea) inaugurated his installation at the Sala Políglota. Present at ´ace thanks to the agreement between the Foundation and ARKO—Arts Council Korea, the artist presented an installation composed of a video and photographs taken during her visit to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego.
Seungyoun Lee (South Korea, also present thanks to the agreement that the Foundation maintains with ARKO—Arts Council Korea), installed in the Dialogue Space of the ´ace studio the result of the 4 weeks that the artist spent producing her work in our printmaking workshop. There, she created a new series of prints on which she made hand drawings to expand the engaved images.
Natalie Bui (USA) inaugurated her mural painting on the terrace of the ´ace studio, where her work will coexist along with the rest of the mural pieces resulting from the Palimpsest Project—Mural Painting Residency.
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Exhibitions
Flowing Roots, Scratched-out Beings
Seungyoun Lee
11.12.24 20.12.24
At midday, I had a dream.
I wandered through Buenos Aires and saw tree roots stretching above the ground. The twisting roots rising up looked like flowing rivers. Stepping into the middle of this flowing river, I found that although the water moved quickly, it felt solid and heavy, like stone. Sitting on the firm water, I looked around. A woman peeked out shyly from a gap between the roots. In another gap, an owl watched me. Many unknown creatures seemed to live in the spaces between the roots. In this project, I imagined the mysterious beings that might live between the big roots, the streams, and the small gaps.
I started engraving and scratching them onto a clear acrylic plate with a thin needle. As I did this, the faint beings slowly became visible. The more force I used and the more lines I scratched, the clearer they became. By making marks on the clear acrylic plate with a sharp needle, a new world we couldn’t see before appeared. A new world was created in the gaps where you could still see through the plate. It was like the world I saw in the gaps of the roots. Scratching many lines on the plate felt like digging into the crevices of the tree roots I had seen. The scratched acrylic plate, marked with
countless lines, only showed its true form clearly when soft ink soaked in. with printing maker, we applied ink to the acrylic plate, then wiped it off, soaked paper in water, pressed it, and dried it. This whole process made me excited and happy, like I was meeting the hidden creatures I had
encountered. Because the process required drawing many lines, I used medieval art styles and Argentina’s plants and animals as references.
The story of the forest printed from the acrylic plate continues with a pencil. It goes beyond the edges of the plate. The beings that were faint on the acrylic plate became clear on the paper and finally came out beyond the plate’s edges through the artist’s drawing. Finally, the beings hidden between
the roots carefully stepped into a new world. Like tree roots that grow endlessly both underground and aboveground and become stronger, the main characters of my work will continue to extend beyond boundaries.
This project is connected to Golden Mold, a picture book coming out in this December in collaboration with South Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. (MMCA) The book includes stories about Korean mushroom spirits and a 2,000-year-old tree and forest I saw in Oaxaca, Mexico. Seeing the trees in Buenos Aires, with their roots rising above the ground, made me imagine what might happen next. I hope to keep developing the story of these strong, river-like trees when I return to Korea.
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