IL LEE - Solo Exhibition Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea

TIRW-201
2012
Acrylic and oil on canvas  - 208.3x276.9

IL LEE Solo Exhibition at Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, KoreaJune 19 - July 15, 2012

Art Projects International is pleased to announce that Gallery Hyundai in Seoul, Korea, will present IL LEE and The Line of Duration, a major solo exhibition of works by Il Lee from June 19 - July 15, 2012. The exhibition is the inaugural collaboration between Art Projects International and Gallery Hyundai and marks the artist's first solo exhibition in Korea in 16 years. This homecoming exhibition is the largest showing of Lee's work in Korea and will feature his signature works --  large-scale ballpoint works on canvas and on paper -- along with his new oil on canvas works, and will be presented at Gallery Hyundai's building in Sagan-dong, Seoul.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue with an essay by Raphael Rubinstein.

Il Lee is best known for his pioneering work with ballpoint that he began over 30 years ago and continues today. His work was the subject of a critically acclaimed, mid-career retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art (2007) and solo exhibitions at the Queens Museum of Art (2007), the Vilcek Foundation in New York (2008), and the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas (2010).  Il Lee's works have been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian Museum of Art and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea.  
For more information about this show click here for a direct link to Gallery Hyundai's website.

For more information on IL LEE please visit 

www.artprojects.com or contact Art Projects International at 212.343.2599 or api@artprojects.com.

IL LEE - Exhibition 2011 - Art Projects International - New York, NY 10013

  IL LEE
Monoprints, Editions and Paintings
October 11 - December 22, 2011

Art Projects International is to present at its new space in Tribeca, a solo exhibition of new limited edition prints and monoprints by Il Lee. The series of prints, with bright greens, blues and rich oranges and browns, have been created in discrete sets of themes which build on diverse explorations of mark-making. This recent focus on the etching process brings Lee back to a practice that was his initial course of study decades ago. Several paintings made concurrently with the prints also will be included in the exhibition. As his large scale works on canvas and on paper suggest at once the monumental and the fundamental dynamism of nature, these new prints convey scale and movement beyond the possibilities their modest formats suggest.

In the monoprint Hanro - M1, etched lines twist around an area of form created by a dense intersection of those same lines. Some lines corkscrew in or out of view; others seem to halt and turn back on themselves. Lee allows, in all these recent etchings, for his lines to have different levels of energy–to develop their own personalities. In the Sosul edition, Lee uses a brushstroke effect to bring attention to series of parallel lines creating the effect; Lee trades the massing of infinite line he often uses to build massive form for abbreviated strokes that generate a meditation on process, mark making and composition. In the Gogu editions, short brushy stubs and grass-like protrusions or bush-like swirls bring abstractions in, not outright but somewhat close, association with nature. In some editions, Lee’s line is given free reign; it might consume the entire surface, explode from a corner, drop from the sky or rise like smoke. The energy of other prints is evocative of Lee’s earlier ballpoint pen work.

As Lee has done throughout his career with new projects and through experimentation, he extends his lexicon of mark making. On a press in his studio, Lee uses color and the special qualities of the etching surface to play with both line and the suggestion of line as he creates layering, atmosphere and the impression of near and far space. Lee’s prints allow for subtle variations of a different sort than in his paintings, and each practice visibly informs the other.

IL LEE
Monoprints, Editions and Paintings
October 11 - December 22, 2011

For more information call Art Projects International 212.343.2599 or email api@artprojects.com

Ballpoint pen on canvas - IL LEE

IL LEE: Ballpoint Abstractions >>>

Il Lee (born 1952) is a contemporary artist currently living in New York City. He is best known for working almost exclusively in the medium of ballpoint pen on paper and canvas. His works have been exhibited in Seoul, Paris, New York City and San Jose.[1] His work is minimalist in style and can be linked to Asian calligraphy.[citation needed]
Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea. He received his B.F.A. in painting from Hongik University in 1976. He then moved to New York and earned his M.F.A. from the Pratt Institute in 1982. It was around this time that he began working with ballpoint pens. His earlier works were all drawn on paper, but in recent years he has begun to work on larger primed canvases.[1]
Lee has been the subject of a critically acclaimed retrospective Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions at the San Jose Museum of Art.[2] and solo exhibitions at major cultural institutions including the Queens Museum of Art and The Vilcek Foundation in New York.