Lee Bae
Lee Bae’s monochromatic practice is a formal and immersive journey into the abysses of blackness. Subtly blurring the lines between drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation, he has developed his abstract aesthetics across categories to imbue the noncolor with tangible depth and intensity. Charcoal, obtained by burning wood and used to revive fire, offers a powerful metaphor for the cycle of life that has further inspired him to expand his exploration to include the fourth dimension of time. Until the early-2000s, he worked exclusively with raw charcoal to create minimal, refined, mosaic-like assemblages of charred wooden shards or chunks on canvas, as well as larger sculptural arrangements of carbonized trunks. While he has moved on to solely working with carbon black, a substance close to soot, Lee Bae’s latest series of pictorial works crystallizes random elemental gestures, which he practices with charcoal ink on canvas and paper, recording his movement and time
Lee’s works have been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums and institutions worldwide. Among them are Phi Foundation, Montreal, Canada; Indang Museum, Daegu, Korea; Wilmotte Foundation, Venice, Italy; Paradise Art Space, Incheon, South Korea; Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Vannes, France; and Musée Guimet, Paris, France. Lee’s works are included in public collections, notably the National Museum of Contemporary Art …
Lee Bae’s monochromatic practice is a formal and immersive journey into the abysses of blackness. Subtly blurring the lines between drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation, he has developed his abstract aesthetics across categories to imbue the noncolor with tangible depth and intensity. Charcoal, obtained by burning wood and used to revive fire, offers a powerful metaphor for the cycle of life that has further inspired him to expand his exploration to include the fourth dimension of time. Until the early-2000s, he worked exclusively with raw charcoal to create minimal, refined, mosaic-like assemblages of charred wooden shards or chunks on canvas, as well as larger sculptural arrangements of carbonized trunks. While he has moved on to solely working with carbon black, a substance close to soot, Lee Bae’s latest series of pictorial works crystallizes random elemental gestures, which he practices with charcoal ink on canvas and paper, recording his movement and time
Lee’s works have been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums and institutions worldwide. Among them are Phi Foundation, Montreal, Canada; Indang Museum, Daegu, Korea; Wilmotte Foundation, Venice, Italy; Paradise Art Space, Incheon, South Korea; Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Vannes, France; and Musée Guimet, Paris, France. Lee’s works are included in public collections, notably the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA), Gwacheon, South Korea; Seoul Museum of Art (SEMA), Seoul, South Korea; Leeum-Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea; Horim Museum, Seoul, Korea; Paradise Art Space, Incheon, South Korea; Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France; Musée Guimet, Paris, France; Musée Cernuschi, Paris, France; Baruj Foundation, Barcelona, Spain; Privada Allegro Foundation, Madrid, Spain; Medianoche Foundation, Granada, Spain; and Phi Foundation, Montreal, Canada.
Courtesy of Perrotin
