Sang-Won Lee
South Korea
Sang-Won Lee
The object of Sangwon Lee’s paintings is crowd. A crowd in a swimming pool or on the beach, escaping midsummer heat; a crowd of people strolling in the park and a crowd of skiers on the hillside. In these crowds can be found, he says, not only the exhaustion of ordinary life but also the rest and leisure to resolve it. As “social animals”, people instinctively tend to live collectively. Individuals crowding in Lee’s paintings interact with each other - gather and talk in groups of twos and threes, cooperate or turn away from each other. Looking into the individual watercolors, the viewer can almost hear the whispers, clamorous noises, cries for a companion, screams of danger, the whimpering and laughing of a baby.
To contain these various stories in a single picture, the artist, instead of enlarging the canvas, reduced the scale of the individual figures to achieve a bird’s-eye view.
Solo Exhibitions
2014 The MulHple, Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
2012 Space Color Movement, Sun contemporary, Seoul
2011 Leisure & Crowd, Space CAN, Seoul
2010 Eye of Beholder, Doosan Gallery, Seoul
2009 Patterns of Life, The Arts Centre of Christchurch, New Zealand
2008 Interphase of Our Life, KT Art Hall, Seoul
2007 the Resting Place, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul
Group Exhibitions
2014 Neo Sansu, Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, Korea
2013 BuTerfly out of Eden, Fellini Gallery, Berlin, Germany
Sphere-Body-Landscape, Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
2012 Space and View, Sky Art Museum, Seoul
2011 Seoul, City Exploration, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul from a Distance, Keep a Distance, Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul Somewhere Place, Cais Gallery, Seoul
2010 Lifescape in Art, Pohang Museum of Steel Art, Pohang Up and Comers, Total Museum, Seoul Distances, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan
2009 Variety, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon Look & Pick - Hello Urban Kids!, Hello Museum, Seoul New Harmony 5×5, Artmia, Beijing, China Paradis Artificiel-Nanjido Project, Nanji Gallery, Seoul
2008 Chronicle of Images, ARKO Arts Center, Seoul
2007 Visual Sound, Cais Gallery, Seoul
2006 Diversity in Form & Thought, Beijing Art Gallery of Imperial City, Beijing, China
2012 Cite internationale des arts, Paris, France
2011 Sky Art Young Artist, Sky Art Museum
2011 SeMA Young Artist, Seoul Museum of Art
2010 Resident Artist of Red Gate Studio, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China
2009 ARKO Young Art Frontier, ARKO
2008 Resident Artist of Nanji Art Studio, Seoul Museum of Art
2008 Korea-New Zealand Exchange Residency, The Arts Centre of Christchurch, New Zealand
2007 Resident Artist of Changdong National Art Studio, National Museum of Contemporary Art
2007 Kumho Young Artist, Kumho Museum of Art