Hee Won Lee — Enchanted Landscape — Dix9 Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 5 → November 9, 2013

Granted with several award winnings and exhibitions in public art spaces, Hee Won Lee develops an artistic practice in which video, graphics, sound and installation meet with grace. Using new media and technology, her works take us into a fragile and dreamlike universe, blurring the boundaries between real and virtual. Perhaps the magic comes from her Korean origin, where shamanism and mysticism are deeply rooted in popular culture.

Hee Won Lee likes to tell stories. Poetical stories, often filled with ghosts that hide a deeper reflection on reality. One enters the works through a seducing and enchanted world, almost magical. But the more one enters it , the more underlying reality is revealed, thus showing the critical dimension of the work. The approach intended by the artist is indeed based on the daily life, which is blurred by subtle alterations that hide the meaning of the work.

A work where, according to Alain Fleischer :

« The acute relevance of technological language and aesthetics is always at the service of a poetic dimension that makes you forget all the process in favor of the evidence and enigma. Rarely among the productions of the artists of her generation, do we find such a sense of fairness and such a novelty, without the decorative dimension which is too often undermined in contemporary techniques images. In Hee Won Lee works we meet both the need and the grace. »

Alain Fleischer , artist, writer, director of The Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts

For her first solo exhibition in a private gallery, Hee Won Lee presents Enchanted Landscape, a collection of, works that are part of her research on time and imagination.

Neverending stories is part of the tradition of painting, but becomes a living picture. Using transparent phosphorescent pigments, the monochrome canvas will deliver its message in the dark. Movement and rhythm of time are here related to day and night cycles. The painting becomes a mental landscape that reflects our own cyclical history and confronts us with the infinite.

With the video Phone Tapping, a work who received many awards, one enters the disturbing world of huge dehumanized cities. In a panoramic view of Seoul where only neon and electric lights animate the nightlife scene, a strange intimate history appears through mobile phone conversations. The anonymous world thus gives way to the ghosts of a lost humanity.

Through a reflection on the imaginary and the symbolic words, Horizon is a work in neon where Korean characters become image and concept. The projection effect by the neon’s and the alignment of the typography recall the visual appearance of the horizon lighting.
Modern and cruel tale, Karaoke delivers the monologue of Miss Lee, ordinary woman who, from his hospital bed, reveals her daily life. We can only get the sound of her voice and a static shot with waves of bright dots that gradually reveal the outlines of a city.

Between reality and imagination, all works in Enchanted Landscape keep their enigmatic power.