Installation view of 《Beholding the Formless, Hearing the Soundless》 © Hakgojae Gallery
Hakgojae Gallery presents a solo exhibition 《Beholding the Formless, Hearing the Soundless》 by artist Lee Lee Nam, on view
through October 24.
The exhibition takes a step beyond his longstanding ‘Image
Transformation’ series, turning its attention toward movement and life itself,
before an image takes form. It represents a shift toward investigating the
state that precedes the birth of an image.
Building on his ongoing experiments with expanding the range of
human perception through technology, Lee Lee Nam takes as his point of
departure the movements of living organisms that remain beyond the limits of
unaided vision. Bringing together works across various media, the exhibition
leads viewers toward a realm that lies beyond the visible.
Installation view of 《Beholding the Formless, Hearing the Soundless》 © Hakgojae Gallery
Lee Lee Nam collected water directly from Yongso Waterfall and
observed it under a microscope, encountering a microscopic realm that the naked
eye can never reach. The waterway that begins at Yongso Waterfall and flows
into the Yeongsan River serves both as a point of departure for contemplating
the origins of life and as a place through which the artist retraces his own
roots.
Following traces of tiny forms of life that are born, move, and
disappear within a single drop of water, he asks where life and existence come
from and where they are headed. The enlarged forms and movements of organisms,
together with the traces created by their collective formations, evoke the
ridgelines of mountain ranges.
As familiar surfaces—at times flowing fluidly, at others
dispersing like clouds or mist—are examined more closely, another texture
gradually emerges, composed of cells and particles. This also brings about a
shift in the way the artist approaches sansuhwa (山水), or traditional landscape painting, which he has explored
throughout his practice.
Installation view of 《Beholding the Formless, Hearing the Soundless》 © Hakgojae Gallery
Here, landscape does not remain confined to the reproduction of
a completed vista. Within the forms spread before us are subtle movements,
transformations of matter, light, time, and other elements that are difficult
to perceive. The macro and the micro are not separate realms, but rather
different layers that emerge when the world is observed at different scales.
The artist juxtaposes the imagery of traditional painting with
microscopic forms captured through a microscope, exploring what lies beneath
what we commonly call a “landscape.” A scene that appears from a distance as
mountains and ridgelines disperses, upon closer inspection, into traces of
countless organisms and particles, revealing different aspects according to
scale and distance.
Installation view of 《Beholding the Formless, Hearing the Soundless》 © Hakgojae Gallery
《Beholding the Formless, Hearing the Soundless》 therefore does not simply enlarge or visualize what is invisible.
Questions that begin with persistent observation extend outward into networks
of relations formed through the entanglement of humans and non-humans, nature
and technology. The deeper one enters the textures of the microscopic world,
the more expansive the horizon of thought becomes.
For Lee Lee Nam, “beholding the formless and hearing the
soundless” is an attitude that moves beyond the boundaries of familiar
perception, seeking to bring into view forms of existence that have previously
gone unnoticed.
