Lee Eun-sil (born in1983) and her works were first encountered at the 2006 Graduation Exhibition of Seoul National University. Her looks with a bodyline so voluptuous and thick wavy hair looked as if she were a college student of Ewha Womans University in the 1980s. However, her nothing-ordinary eyes seemed to describe “her mentality transcending time and space.” To speak straightforwardly and vividly, she looked definitely insane.
Her works displayed at the graduation exhibition echoed that the artist’s mentality was out of space and time of the ordinary. For instance, the Korean ink and color painting of hers titled Network (Mang) suggested a serene landscape of mountains and water made of little pieces of here and there (in fact, they make no sense). However, the space on it goes further beyond a window, a contrast with the time and space of normality. The most eye-popping one is of course the male tiger whose erected penis is out loose, and the female deer shedding blood on the penis. As such, such an unbelievable setting almost made me unconscious, so I could not easily grasp the fact that the rocks, valleys, ponds, waterfalls and trees with the explicit metaphor for sexual organs were serving as mise-en-scene.
Each of her pieces was full of the humid air as if to exude out of the out-of-mind sexual world. I wanted to say hello to “this intriguing and eccentric girl” and exchange our name cards, but Lee was busy explaining about her works to her friends, totally being aloof to those around her.
The facial expression of her attentive friends was so funny – two boys and a girl, not so sure exactly, but one of the male college students is still unforgettable. Looking like a typical nerd majoring in science and engineering, he must have been her club friend. He was completely engulfed in her explanation. His face seemed to say, “Oh, man! I wanna go home.” He strongly grasped a bunch of flowers in his hand.
Other friends of hers were the same in their body reaction. The other boy listening to her right next to the other one seemed to say, “I have never expected Lee Eun-sil to go on and on about the explicit sexual desire even in my dream.” However, Lee never recognized the fact that her friends were rather scared to some extent let alone being embarrassed, continuing her explanation. She went on to explain about her paintings like a machine without much feeling, like a high school teacher of ethics and etiquettes “The tiger raped the deer, who was heartbroken, but she is secretly looking at him driven by some irresistible force.”
Listening to her endless stories from afar, I came to understand how these kinds of works could survive in the Department of Oriental Painting at Seoul National University, known to be quite conservative. As she was so bright and clear in explaining about her works, professors or instructors must have lost a chance in when and how to stop her. (“It is like how a fearless puppy cannot not bite and kill the tiger, and a victim of the guiltless rapist cannot yell right away.”) After some while, I had a chance to introduce those who stood out in their graduation exhibitions, and Lee Eun-sil was definitely was one of the interviewees. She said back then about the best thing she did in college, “I poured in my utmost love,” about the place she wanted to have her solo exhibition in, “Changgyunggung Palace,” and in ten years time, “I might actively create works travelling all over the world.”
Then, I encountered Lee at SSamzie Residency Program, and she looked different from at her graduation exhibition. It was less than only two years ago, and she looked somewhat exhausted. I asked her how come the number of her artworks is so small, and she said she could not do her work for quite long. It is the norm that problems occur when artworks and life are so closely interlinked, or life is greatly influenced by works. In good times, good works are borne and vitality is turned on in life, but in bad times in cyclicality, it is never easy to stand up again.
I personally do not know her well, so I do not know what problems she had, but she might need to rearrange her method of artistic brainstorming. Her current works reveal some conceptual chaos with the crudely integrated motifs of various sorts. In her paintings, a close look at sexual intercourse and excretion, many of the layers do not grab the attention that much. I will anatomize her works quire randomly.
• Exposed through fetishes like the male and female genitals, anus and buttocks, sexual pleasure is amassed on the domain of agony, and the macho-style organism with clarity in each step never emerges. In her paintings, the pleasure of the male is described as the clitoris-driven organism of the female like repetitive waves. Therefore, the penis in her paintings is interpreted in the expanded form of clitoris, though seemingly exaggerated. One classic example is “The pain of ejaculation(Sajeongjitong).” The male lion is described to concentrate on his “post-orgasmic chill” the pleasure after ejaculation (the light chill and melancholy of the female after orgasm). In this world, there is no man of such bisexuality. Most men become totally different right after ejaculation.
• Beasts emerging as incarnation of men and women (a deer with a woman’s big genital and a lion with a man’s big genital etc.)
• Image of an ending part with hyperemia (capillary fetish)
• Colors looking stuffy and wet as natural dyes are repeatedly colored and dried
• Symbolic emergence of the red blood
• Expression of the blurred secretion
• Symbolic emergence (ambiguous allegory as in the life-death boundary and outburst of desire) of water (river, waterfall, pond etc)
• A man crouching down for excretion (as if to confront a figure like Gosagwansudo (a seonbi (scholar) overlooking water from the high hill))
• The landscape rearranged through mending (no need for a source painting)
• The same expression of a tree as mise-en-scene like public hair (even a dual surreal image to a small extent)
• Rocks and a valley as mise-en-scene like male and female genitals
• Accumulation of tactile points emerging hazy
• Hair fetish
• A drama of masochism and sadism
• Metaphor of (conventional) architectural space exposing the in/outside boundary
• Others that emerge: The moon, the sun, tombs, toilets etc
• Metaphoric titles
• A significantly voluptuous paper wrapping frame
It would be too much to ask, if she is to paint series based on all these elements in a consistent form (Sometimes, a theme an artist has openly chosen can overwhelm him/herself). Her paintings so far are a sort of blueprint. It might be an uncompleted map showing what kind of a critical mind I have, what kind of a person I am and what kind of themes to be solved (or to be asked) through future works. (Some might believe that only the outcome pouring in something irresistible is the “authentic work,” but that is not true. Works with a lot of energy put in do not necessarily appeal to, or are not always understood well by the audience).
It is a blessing for a young artist that there is something thrown up from the bottom of one’s inner self. As she is still young, she might be able to push herself to the further extreme after throwing up endlessly. However, it is not wise to keep doing so. What is thrown up must be specifically reanalyzed, and if things worth fostering are discovered, they must be further cultivated (What is interesting has been already thrown up a lot). In professional painting, it is a must to create conditions to enjoy works for long. It is desirable to shed out excessive greed and start anew by setting priorities for works. It is the attitude of professional artists and those who yearn to become one. Why doesn’t she decide to “produce 30 piece-series works in this first half under the theme of pubic hair fetish by closely exploring a topical part of a tiger and a deer?”
Post. Analyzing and critiquing the works in depth could be saved for future tasks for me and the artist alike.
