LEE JINHANI EAT I VOMIT

LEE JINHANI EAT I VOMIT

I EAT I VOMIT

Lee Jinhan’s expressive abstract paintings depar t from the challenge between the Renaissance perspectives and

abstract modernist paintings. Lee’s joyful layers of painterly surfaces display both spontaneous fluidity with delicate

moderation. She playfully sweeps across the canvas with diverse ar tistic medium such as oil paints, fluorescent spray

paints and glitters with captivating colours to create the subtle disorientation between abstract and figuration and

two dimension and three dimension bringing the continuous to-and-fro reaction within. By strategically merging two

chronically different ideas of representation - Renaissance perspective representation as illusions of reality and flat

Modernist abstract representation as an object of itself – she allows the disparate spaces and time to coexist on

the surfaces creating linear relationships. The layers of paints cease to exist in their chronological order breaking the

continuity of time and space allowing all to exist in one moment in time.

Lee’s most recent works displayed in this exhibition show her gradual development on her subject matter – from

the abstract landscape to an open ended abstract environment incorporating figurative references from the popular

culture as Korean pop music (K-Pop), internet car toons and literatures. Especially in an age when the mass media

plays a significant role in creating human consciousness, these uncontrollable amount of ephemeral representations

and metaphors shown in contemporary culture are also one form of abstraction – as she comments on the K-pop

industry and music in Electric Shock (2012) and NUABO (2012). The ar tist employs perplex yet wondrous images

through literality to depict this abstractness embedded in the society and the language. In these, she toys with images,

languages, contexts and their interdependent relationship analogous to the postmodernists’ non-narrative play of

detached signifiers in constructing a unique pictorial language. Yet, refraining from deconstructing the context and

minimising her subjective influence she allows interpretive cues for the audience to decipher and to create the meaning

at their perusal. Regardless of the original functional and the metaphorical meaning, in paintings as Volcano Duck and

Three Moo Boxes (2012), she produces ambiguous and incongruent context through the literal conversion of the

language into the image. The complex entanglement of the metaphorical contexts becomes blurred and the boundary

between the sign, the signifier and the signified becomes obscured.

02 | 03

Big Fish | oil and glitter on canvas | 180 x 140 cm | 2012

I Eat I Vomit | oil , acr ylic and glitter on canvas | 220 x 160 cm | 2012

In 2010, Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker introduced the term metamodernism alternative to

postmodernism that fails to situate or explain the current state of affairs. It is typified by a continuous oscillation, a

constant repositioning between attitudes that are evocative of the modern and of the postmodern but are ultimately

suggestive of another sensibility that is neither of them. In Lee’s pictorial universe, she not only oscillates between

modernism and postmodernism but fur ther back to Renaissance by successfully creating a new visual language without

nihilation or objection to the past. She endeavours for the reconciliation to create alternative narrative rather than to

re-construct through deconstruction. Just like Plato’s metaxy (in-between), she skilfully remains in the pocket universe

pushing the opposite poles to the beyond. Lee Jinhan’s paintings are past, present and future - all at the same time. This

is just what makes Lee’s paintings so different, so appealing.

Lee Jinhan (b.1982) lives and works in London, United Kingdom. She received MFA at Goldsmiths and Central Saint

Mar tins, London after achieving BFA at Hongik University, Seoul. Lee has exhibited widely in UK and Korea. Most

recently she has been shor tlisted for Saatchi Gallery New Sensation 2012 and she has been selected as finalist for

Gallery Loop Young Ar tist Competition 2011, Seoul, 33rd Joongang Fine Ar t Competition, Seoul and Guasch Conranty

Prize 2010, Barcelona.

04 | 05

Haruki Book | oil and spray paint on l inen | 200 x 180 cm | 2012

06 | 07

Volcano Duck and Three Moo Boxes | oil and spray paint on l inen | 200 x 180 cm | 2012

08 | 09

McDonalds | oil and spray paint on l inen | 200 x 200 cm | 2012

10 | 11

Dancing | oil and spray paint on l inen | 170 x 130 cm | 2012

06 | 0712 | 13

Electr ic Shock | oil and spray paint on l inen | 200 x 170 cm | 2012

14 | 15

Juggling Man | oil and spray paint on l inen | 200 x 180 cm | 2012

16 | 17

NUABO | oil , spray paint and glitter on l inen | 220 x 160 cm | 2012

18 | 19

20 | 21

Arrrr | oil , acr ylic and spray paint on canvas | 110 x 100 cm | 2012

Tongue Olympics | oil and spray paint on l inen | 92 x 112 cm | 2012

22 | 23

Rainbow Eyes | oil on canvas | 50.5 x 40.5 cm | 2012

Untitled | oil and spray paint on canvas | 51 x 51 cm | 2012

24 | 25

Untitled | oil and acr ylic on canvas | 50.5 x 40.5 cm | 2012

v

LEE JINHAN (b. 1982)

EDUCATION

2012 MFA Fine Ar t at Goldsmiths, London, UK

2008 MA Fine Ar t at Central Saint Mar tins, London, UK

2006 BFA Painting at Hongik University, Seoul, Korea

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012 I EAT I VOMIT, HADA Contemporary, London, UK

2012 Postmodernism of the Beholder - Landscape of the Concept,

Gallery Loop, Seoul, Korea

2009 BEYOND AND WITHIN, Gallery Muse at 269, London, UK

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2012 Saatchi New Sensation, Victoria House, London, UK

2011 Embracing the Void, HADA Contemporary, London, UK

33rd Joongang Fine Ar t Competition Selected Ar tists’ Show, Seoul Ar ts

Center, Seoul, Korea

I AM SOLITARY - LONDON, curated by Beers. Lamber t Contemporary Ar t,

Gift at 10 Vyner St. Gallery, London, UK

2010 FUTURE FUTURES FUTURE, Korean Cultural Centre UK, London, UK

Core Gallery Open Submission Exhibition for Depford X, Core gallery,

Deptford, London, UK

Guasch Coranty Painting Prize Selected Ar tists’ Show, Center of Ar t Tecla Sala,

Barcelona, Spain

Open Painting, Royal West England Academy, Bristol, UK

4482: Korean Contemporary Ar tist in London, Barge House, OXO Tower

Wharf, London, UK

Project Space: PRINT NOW, London Ar t Fair, Design Centre, London —MAY

2010, BEARSPACE, London, UK

2009 Raymond Gun: Platform, Degreear t.com gallery, London, UK

Gathering Storm, Bayfield Hall, Norfolk, UK

2008 Improvisation, Newdays gallery, London, UK

Chorus Project, Hun gallery, New York, Korus House, Embassy of republic of

Korea, Washington DC, US

4482: Korean Contemporary Ar tist in London, Barge House, OXO Tower

Wharf, London, UK

Central Saint Mar tins MA Degree Show 08, Central Saint Mar tins College of

Ar t and Design, London, UK

WHITE GOODS, Stroud House gallery, Stroud, UK

Central Saint Mar tins MA Interim Show 08, Barge House, OXO Tower

Wharf, London, UK

AWARDS

2012 Shor tlist for New Sensation, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK

2011 Finalist for Gallery Loop Young Ar tist Competition, Gallery Loop, Seoul,

Korea

Finalist for 33rd Joongang Fine Ar t Competition, Seoul, Korea

Finalist for I AM SOLITARY, LONDON, Beers, Lamber t Contemporary Ar t,

London, UK

2010 Finalist for 2010 Guasch Conranty Prize, Fundación Guasch Coranty,

Barcelona, Spain

PROJECT

2009 DIALOGUE BOX: BEYOND AND WITHIN, AirSpace Gallery, Stroke on

Trent, UK

This catalogue is published by HADA Contemporary to accompany the exhibition:

LEE JINHANI EAT I VOMIT

6 DECEMBER 2012 - 31 JANUARY 2013

© HADA Contemporary Ltd. 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any

form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,

including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the publishers

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