Lee Jin Woo

Lee Jin Woo, born in 1959, Seoul, South Korea. He lives and works in Paris.

 

In the mid-70s in Korea, a generation of artists broke with their artistic heritage, calling themselves the Dansaekhwa group, the Korean term for monochrome painting. They began to explore the physical limits of art's materiality, linking the viewer to the spiritual principles of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. 

 

Lee Jin Woo is one of those artists whose art is timeless. Starting out as a caligrapher, Lee Jin Woo gradually turned his attention to the material he found most readily around him: charcoal. This new tool, at once a petrified fragment of life and a fascinating block of strength and volume, enables him to create works in relief that breathe with their environment. 

 

What appears to be a landscape is actually writing. The artist places the material on its base, distributes it, organizes it, brushes it, wears it down artificially over time by constantly reworking it. Lee Jin Woo's lines and striations are the finest definition of what Bergson calls the resistance of matter. Nothing could be truer, nothing more soothing, nothing more mineral than this material whose secrets Lee Jin Woo alone knows. 

 

His work can be found in major collections around the world, with exhibitions in France, the UK, South Korea, China and Japan. In 2016, the Musée Cernuschi acquired an important piece by Lee Jin Woo for its permanent collection.