30년 이상 작품에 몰입하신 이명숙 선생님의 갤러리전. 한국인으로써 뉴욕이라는 아트 거장의 도시에서 그것도 첼시라는 예술의 세계에 선생님의 작품이 열린다는 것은 너무나도 자랑스러운 일이였다.
독특한 디자인과 매력적인 색채를 풍기는 작품. 하지만, 심플함으로 뭔가 미니머니즘의 효과마져 부각시켜주는 작품은 하나의 예술적 발명품과도 같다.
(다음은 뉴욕 첼시갤러리 매거진에 실린 선생님의 평이다)
> DESCRIPTION
Myung Sook Lee: The Pure Pleasures of Form
Korean born and educated Myung Sook Lee is an experienced abstract painter who has been making art for more than thirty years. Her elegant, expressive work relates to larger, more general patterns I have seen in Korean abstract artists, who rely on color and especially design. While the forms she uses seem simple, in fact she is creating compositions of great sophistication. The imagery connects with the tradition of late modernism, in which the basic tenets of form are investigated for their own sake, so that there is little reference to the outside world. Yet Lee’s highly nuanced imagination results in efforts that compel the viewer to admire her technical skill. Lee almost effortlessly creates paintings that are alive with ingenuity and fine distinctions of form. As a result, she communicates in her art a genuine sense of wonder, which overtakes her audience as well. In work like this, we see the artist probing and experimenting with variations on relatively straightforward patterns, which yield to a more or less musical reading of her creativity. Like the contemporary composer, Lee finds pleasure in minimal changes that resonate both in the moment and across time.
The balanced, fine distinctions of roughly geometric shapes are found throughout Lee’s art. In Untitled 7-31, we see on the left a black semicircle with an angled edge; a white line reiterates the edge, which consists of small shifts that underscore the not quite straight line that makes up the noncircular border. A thin space separates the black form from a more conventionally circular green shape, which is cut down the middle so that it is only present by half. These forms might first seem as though they are in conflict with one another, with each piece butting the other in order to win a greater share of the space. But the viewer’s gaze also determines that, combined, the two semicircles form a complete whole, whose spheroid form works out a symbol of transcendence and harmony. There is a tension between complete and incomplete form that recurs in Lee’s finely measured art; she tries to keep poised the exquisite fragments of form that are found in her paintings. In Untitled 07-29, a perfect circle contains a large patch of blue inside of it; the area of color holds a straight line, while on the right side there are three or four slightly crooked lines that encompass a white space. Here, again, Lee modifies her forms so that they add or subtract from each other, building complexity from within.
In some respects, Lee’s work echoes the elegant single-color paintings of Ellsworth Kelly, whose exquisite sense of equilibrium brings poetic balance to his off-kilter canvases. Untitled 07-25 is close to being a diptych; on the left there is a square of black with a circular line drawn on the right edge of the square, and on the right side of the painting, we see a green leaflike shape with a short, straight line cutting into its top left and a thicker, black line dividing the leaf at its widest point. One senses that the stability of the image is attained by the way the leaf form seems to rest on the black square, whose solid mass gives weight to the overall picture. Again and again, Lee brilliantly uses images as counterpoints to other images, so that a basic stability is achieved. This stability is perhaps better reported as an imagistic harmony, which is based on the deliberate pursuit of beauty. Lee finds agreement despite the fragmented components of her work, which, for all its contrarieties, delivers visual unity to her audience.
이명숙 교수님의 첼시 갤러리(2008)
30년 이상 작품에 몰입하신 이명숙 선생님의 갤러리전. 한국인으로써 뉴욕이라는 아트 거장의 도시에서 그것도 첼시라는 예술의 세계에 선생님의 작품이 열린다는 것은 너무나도 자랑스러운 일이였다.
독특한 디자인과 매력적인 색채를 풍기는 작품. 하지만, 심플함으로 뭔가 미니머니즘의 효과마져 부각시켜주는 작품은 하나의 예술적 발명품과도 같다.
(다음은 뉴욕 첼시갤러리 매거진에 실린 선생님의 평이다)
> DESCRIPTION
Myung Sook Lee: The Pure Pleasures of Form
Korean born and educated Myung Sook Lee is an experienced abstract painter who has been making art for more than thirty years. Her elegant, expressive work relates to larger, more general patterns I have seen in Korean abstract artists, who rely on color and especially design. While the forms she uses seem simple, in fact she is creating compositions of great sophistication. The imagery connects with the tradition of late modernism, in which the basic tenets of form are investigated for their own sake, so that there is little reference to the outside world. Yet Lee’s highly nuanced imagination results in efforts that compel the viewer to admire her technical skill. Lee almost effortlessly creates paintings that are alive with ingenuity and fine distinctions of form. As a result, she communicates in her art a genuine sense of wonder, which overtakes her audience as well. In work like this, we see the artist probing and experimenting with variations on relatively straightforward patterns, which yield to a more or less musical reading of her creativity. Like the contemporary composer, Lee finds pleasure in minimal changes that resonate both in the moment and across time.
The balanced, fine distinctions of roughly geometric shapes are found throughout Lee’s art. In Untitled 7-31, we see on the left a black semicircle with an angled edge; a white line reiterates the edge, which consists of small shifts that underscore the not quite straight line that makes up the noncircular border. A thin space separates the black form from a more conventionally circular green shape, which is cut down the middle so that it is only present by half. These forms might first seem as though they are in conflict with one another, with each piece butting the other in order to win a greater share of the space. But the viewer’s gaze also determines that, combined, the two semicircles form a complete whole, whose spheroid form works out a symbol of transcendence and harmony. There is a tension between complete and incomplete form that recurs in Lee’s finely measured art; she tries to keep poised the exquisite fragments of form that are found in her paintings. In Untitled 07-29, a perfect circle contains a large patch of blue inside of it; the area of color holds a straight line, while on the right side there are three or four slightly crooked lines that encompass a white space. Here, again, Lee modifies her forms so that they add or subtract from each other, building complexity from within.
In some respects, Lee’s work echoes the elegant single-color paintings of Ellsworth Kelly, whose exquisite sense of equilibrium brings poetic balance to his off-kilter canvases. Untitled 07-25 is close to being a diptych; on the left there is a square of black with a circular line drawn on the right edge of the square, and on the right side of the painting, we see a green leaflike shape with a short, straight line cutting into its top left and a thicker, black line dividing the leaf at its widest point. One senses that the stability of the image is attained by the way the leaf form seems to rest on the black square, whose solid mass gives weight to the overall picture. Again and again, Lee brilliantly uses images as counterpoints to other images, so that a basic stability is achieved. This stability is perhaps better reported as an imagistic harmony, which is based on the deliberate pursuit of beauty. Lee finds agreement despite the fragmented components of her work, which, for all its contrarieties, delivers visual unity to her audience.
- Written by Jonathan Goodman (Feb.2008) -