Image:
Dreamy
Journey-First love, Fantasies of old memories, Good and Old Days, 60.6x72.7cm,
Color on Silk, 2015
Gallery d’Arte 547West
27th Street, Suite 518, New York, NY 10001 gallerydarte@gmail.com
201.724.7077 gallerydarte.wix.com/darte
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE:
Gallery
d’Arte, 547 West 27th Street, Suite 518 New York City is
proud to present Dong Yeoun Lee:
Redefining Contemporary Beauty.
The Solo Exhibition will run from February 24- March 14, 2016
with Opening Receptions on Thursday, February 15th and March
3rd, from 6-8PM.
Genre painting of literati and their lives
including beautiful women proliferated in Korea of the 19th Century
during the Joseon Dynasty. Although the subjects were Korean, the inspiration
came from Chinese painting as seen in the early works of Ku Kai Chih, Chou Fang
who depicted the beauties of their time. In Korea, by the later Joseon Dynasty
Chinese influence waned and Korean portraiture attained its own distinct flavor.
These were seen in the paintings of the Yangban or literati class painters who
depicted the great beauties of Korea as seen in Sin Yun-bok’s painting The
Beauty, 18C or Kim Duk-sin’s Women out Walking, 18C. But while
these old masters were using the notion of portraiture to portray their skill or
the existence of the great beauties of their time, Lee uses the portrait to
examine the notion of illusory existence as compared to the one in Buddhism, but
also as metaphor of the ‘Other.’
Dong-Yeoun Lee’s beauties are
self-portraits that examine the reflection of her inner being and feelings of a
Kierkegaard-ian existential incompleteness. So in this sense Lee goes back to
her history to bring it up to date by focusing on the individual’s experience.
She acknowledges the uneasy partnership between mind and body while focusing on
sensory perception in order to negotiate the existential divide. Her creative
instinct is an act of self-assertion as much as it is an act of defiance and
freedom.
Her beauties wear Hanbok while holding android phones, or
wearing earphones, thus they are contemporary females yet because of their
19th Century dress, signal their captivity in a Confucian society.
However, unlike her predecessors Lee expresses her beauties in strong line and
color without areas of fading or very delicate soft tree branches. Her line is
confident and sure, and her color bright and high toned. The Hanbok was meant to
hide the female body according to modest behavior but the flouting of modern
self-absorption with telephones and earphones is the opposite of Confucian
etiquette. So that Lee in a way in ridding herself of the social shackles to
pursue her own interests and preferences.
Lee earned her BA. MFA and Ph.d
Certificate from HongIk University and had exhibitions at the prestigious
places, such as Hangaram Museum, Hana Art, Morning Calm Gallery and the
Southwest Museum and this is her first solo exhibition in New
York.
For More
Information: Gallery d’Arte, 547 West 27th Street, Suite
518, New York, NY 10001 gallerydarte@gmail.com, pariskoh@gmail.com or call
201.724.7077
Gallery hours: Tue-Fri: 12-6pm, Sat: 12-3pm, Sun & Mon:
Closed |