Jaeheon Lee draws from a wide spectrum of influences—Velázquez, Goya, Bacon, Giacometti, Picasso, Richter, and others—merging these approaches into a distinctive, highly personal painting style. His work establishes a dialogue between Korean cultural heritage and reflections on contemporary human experience, positioning them within the broader context of Western art history. Lee seeks to reconnect historical Korean painting traditions with present-day culture, addressing the rupture in figurative painting caused by Westernization and modernization following the Japanese occupation. Imbued with subtle spirituality and poetic sensibility, Lee’s brushwork pursues the existential form of the human figure. Echoing Giacometti, he repeatedly paints and erases, tracing the tension between presence and absence. His figures often shed individual identity, merging into singular, emblematic forms that reflect the state of humanity in the 21st century. Ghostlike and ephemeral, these beings inhabit a liminal space—suspended between life and death, presence and memory—offering meditations on civilization, mortality, and the fragile, collective essence of human existence. Across his work, Lee’s paintings evoke both timelessness and immediacy, bridging history and contemporary experience through haunting, contemplative imagery. ...
