▲ Artist Lee Kyung-eun

The red era
Artist Lee once was famous for what many people called ‘red energy’. Red for Lee means the color of essence. She has a great attachment to red that she came back to it again and again while using other colors; it has made her feel communicative with herself and with the people without awkwardness. “Red is stillness now for me” says she. Art critic Park Young-taek said “Lee’s style is expressive and a little literary. Drawing in a way can compare with writing; but with a brush instead of a pen. She creates her own atmosphere out onto the canvas from her inner landscape. We cannot say precisely what it is but we can surely know that her brush composes the colors on images for communication.” 

The green era
Lee started to engage in public art and installation as well as exchange exhibitions, culture and art education and seminars from 2000. She participated, and/or managed, various projects such as ‘Triangle Project’ that finds a province to draw and exhibit the works about the local (Cheol-Am, Taebaek City, for example), ‘Mullae-dong Picturing’ in Seoul, and ‘Joint of Two Rivers’ and ‘Jebi-ri Meets Halartec’ in Yangpyeong County. It was 2015 that she started to develop her idea on using green color. “I take green as home to which I belong and I must come back. In other words, it represents the cycle of our life like going to work and back home. So, I wanted to talk about the traces of the cycle with green.” Art critic Park Young-taek said “She focuses on visible things, behind it, and the other surface for particles of memories and times layer on layer. She also focuses on people’s foot which makes her feel melancholy; foot is the means to carry people from one place to another.”

Dreaming of Another Hope
Among many of Lee’s works, ‘108’ probably is the most representative work. It is an installation exhibited at Dumulmeori, Yangpeyong County in 2017. For this remarkable work, Lee copied the front part of her foot with plaster into 108 individual works. “The moment I arrived at Dumulmeori, the snow started falling heavily. And I came to know a student died there by seeing a memorial stone. It made me thought about life’s incompleteness and the course of return and extinction.” The installation was praised by many for depicting the marvelousness of nature like the ice becomes extinct during the course of melting. “The exhibition was held under the title ‘Dreaming of Forever’. Now I’m planning an exhibition titled ‘Dreaming of Another Hope’ to encourag the people to try to dream of another of their hope.” Lee adds “Being an artist is the greatest thing of my life. I just thank the fact that I can live as an artist and I will do more of communicating with more people with sincerity.” 

▲ 禁, 가변크기, 압착목화솜, 철사, 2017.