Art Paris 2016 — Galerie Maria Lund — Grand Palais – La nef — Fair — Slash Paris

Past: March 31 → April 3, 2016

The gallery presents new works by LEE JIN WOO and MIN JUNG–YEON.

The quest for elsewhere lies at the center of Lee Jin Woo’s work, whereas Min Jung-Yeon conveys, in a figurative manner, her “here”; her feelings, dreams, everyday life and revisited past. Thus, what we see is only but an invitation to enter the real topic.

Lee Jin Woo If one takes the time to look, to look again, to let go, far, inside a work by Lee Jin Woo, the silence of an enlarged space, of an extended time can also be heard… Spontaneously, we call these works “landscapes”. Contemplation landscapes, made of organic matters (Hanji paper, charcoal, pigments, ink) that have re-become nature and turned into vectors of transcendence. These works are born from an essential need: the artist’s desire to merge with matter, Nature, in the “Being” — to disappear. In order to succeed, working becomes a way of living; his labour is a form of meditation, a way to let himself be absorbed in order for something to maybe emerge. Far from concepts and programs, working for the artist equals searching. Like the Dansaekhwa artists, Lee Jin Woo felt the need to reconnect with Korean culture — after a first stay in France in the 1980s. However, if his work shows formal similarities with this movement — tri-dimensionality, the use of Hanji paper, the relationship to nature and the importance of simply doing — Lee Jin-Woo belongs to the next generation. His work is eminently personal; it is about finding a way to breathe. It is his breathing that his works carry.

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Min Jung-Yeon asserts an expression and a universe, which are characterized by the encounter of organic elements, fluidity and components both structured and structural. She is the heiress of Asian landscape paintings and drawings, where Nature represents the state of mind of those inhabiting them. In subtle scenes, the artist attempts to convey existence, permanent movement and parallel temporalities through the use of metaphors. Based on her everyday life, her observations and emotions, she deals with the universal subject of reality’s complexity. Femininity and masculinity are another recurrent topic: The dialogue is not simple; these two forces confront each other, sometimes merge or live in simple juxtaposition.Min Jung-Yeon’s fascination for philosophy and natural science pervades her entire work, from a post-Darwinian vision of life and the fight between species and plants, or the battle between the sexes, to her allusions to the paradoxes of physics. The artist’s latest drawings bear more resemblance to her paintings: To the fluidity of watercolors, the textured stroke of the pencil and the thousands of tiny lines of Indian ink, she has added layers of acrylic paint, playing with density or transparence, thus bringing to existence impenetrable “bodies”. The paper once left bare to act as a counterpoint to the forms unfolding is now almost entirely covered in more or less abstract planes; “landscapes” drawn in darker hues, brightened by luminous patches of diluted acrylic or by black, white, and grey ink shapes or marked with a bold graphic line. The artist uses a chiaroscuro of muted tones, bringing to life planes and “natures”, which are subtly intertwined.