Woosung Lee (b. 1983) portrays the youth of today through everyday scenes. His work begins with recalling personal moments that have occurred around him and translating them into paintings. These fragmented memories take shape as intimate and everyday narratives, encompassing themes of youth, solidarity, humor, travel, family, and queer romance.

Woosung Lee’s early works capture the anxieties, conflicts, and melancholy of his generation, including those he experienced as a young artist in his twenties alongside his peers. Before being an artist, Lee expressed the generational contradictions and despair he felt as a member of society through anonymous portrayals of youth. In his early works, the figures' faces are often obscured or shown from behind, not pointing to any specific individual but rather serving as a metaphor for the collective "we."

Woosung Lee’s first solo exhibition, 《Bul, Bul, Bul》 (175 Gallery, 2012), featured the large-scale painting Nobody Listens to My Sorrow (2011), which exemplifies his early artistic tendencies. At the time, having just graduated from graduate school and embarking on his career as an artist, Lee captured emotions of despair, melancholy, and anxiety in the face of harsh realities. 

In Nobody Listens to My Sorrow, the contrast between a burning vessel and the serene appearance of a duck boat, along with the stark juxtaposition of the intense fire and the tranquil background, creates an ironic and unsettling scene. This collision of intensity and deep silence reflects the cynicism Lee felt amid the contradictions of reality at the time.

The large-scale painting People Who Are Staring Straight Ahead (2012), measuring 3 meters in height and 6 meters in width, features a crowd of young people in their 20s and 30s—Lee’s contemporaries at the time—gazing forward with intense, almost threatening expressions, creating an overwhelming presence. Among them, some wear headbands inscribed with the word “승리 (Victory),” while others hold burning flames in their hands. 

Their expressions and gestures convey the justified frustration of a youth generation facing an absurd social structure. A figure in the lower left corner of the painting holds a mirror, reflecting the viewer standing in front of the artwork, thereby drawing them into the crowd. 

Through this series of works, Lee Woosung suggests, “This frustration is both my story and yours.” He emphasizes that while each individual harbors personal grievances, the root of these concerns is not merely personal but deeply embedded in a broader societal context.

In his first solo exhibition in 2012, Lee explored the collective identity of the "880,000-won Generation," portraying a generational portrait of "us." However, in his 2013 solo exhibition, 《Returning Entering Descending Devouring》 at the OCI Museum of Art, he shifted focus inward, using new painterly variations to explore his own inner world. 

The exhibition title, “Returning Entering Descending Devouring”, is derived from the movement of a wolf chasing its prey. Inspired by this imagery, Lee reflected on himself, envisioning his work through the desperate act of running—an attempt to avoid being devoured.

The exhibition’s title piece, Returning Entering Descending Devouring (2013), is composed of 15 panels, depicting fragmented human organs scattered across a desk. Alongside these body parts, everyday objects frequently used by the artist—such as knives, memo pads, and tissue boxes—are interwoven into the composition. The act of temporarily placing all bodily organs on the desk serves as a metaphor for a state of absence. 

Art critic and curator Yeon Shim Chung remarked that this work appears to function as a form of "critical distancing," a self-imposed break by the artist within a system that relentlessly demands the constant production of new works from artists in Korea’s art scene.

Since 2014, Woosung Lee has actively painted his subjects on large fabric banners. His ‘Folded Then Unfolded Picture’ series, first introduced in his 2015 solo exhibition 《Pulling from the Front, Pushing from Behind》 at Art Space Pool, extends from this practice. This series involved folding paintings, carrying them into the streets, and staging temporary exhibitions in public spaces. 

Lee’s cloth paintings originated during his artist-in-residence in Ireland, where he painted on fabric that he carried in a suitcase, capturing his experiences of seeing, hearing, and meeting people in a foreign land. Later, in Seoul, he fully developed this approach, depicting urban landscapes, objects, and faces of people as he moved through the city, continuing the project in a dynamic, mobile format.

Originally used for propaganda, cloth paintings take on a different role in Woosung Lee’s practice, as he paints everyday scenes embedded in his memories onto large pieces of fabric. He is particularly drawn to the lightweight and foldable nature of these paintings, allowing them to be transported and displayed in various locations.

By exhibiting his works in this flexible, nomadic manner, Lee distances himself from the conventional one-on-one relationship between the artist and the artwork. Instead, he experiments with the possibilities that arise when art is taken beyond the studio or white cube and integrated into everyday life.

Through his large-scale cloth paintings, Woosung Lee established a new pictorial language. Meanwhile, in his 2017 solo exhibition 《Quizás, Quizás, Quizás》 at Amado Art Space, he introduced a different approach—translating fragments of memories stored on his phone into small, 11cm square drawings on paper. 

One day, while scrolling through the vertically stored images in his phone’s timeline, Lee began contemplating how memories are organized and recalled. He started transcribing forgotten moments and buried memories onto paper using pen and cartoon screen tones. The result was a timeline in which past and present coexisted, forming a restructured narrative detached from linear time. Through this process, Lee’s fragmented memories were reconstructed into a new visual storytelling method.

In contrast to his earlier works that depicted anonymous figures representing a collective "us," Woosung Lee’s 2017 solo exhibition 《My Dear》 at Hakgojae Gallery introduced a series of portraits featuring clearly identifiable individuals—his acquaintances. These works not only presented detailed depictions of specific people but also explicitly named them in the titles, directly addressing a particular "you." 

Rather than reflecting societal structures and realities, as in his previous projects, this series focused on intimate portrayals of individuals seen through the artist’s personal perspective. By emphasizing the distinct features of each person, Lee captured the resilience of individuals navigating the complexities of contemporary life with warmth and clarity.

Meanwhile, Woosung Lee, through How are you doing? I'm doing well here (2021), reaches out to an unnamed person who can only be viewed from a distant, unreachable place. In the summer of 2021, Lee visited Aegibong, a mountain located in Gimpo, Gyeonggi-do, and gazed at the faintly visible northern land across the river, imagining someone who might be there.

The artist imagined someone who, due to the battles of politics and ideology, had to part from a loved one, against their will. Through this, Lee decided to offer the message "How are you doing? I'm doing well here" as a painting to "him/her" who might be in North Korea.

The landscape beyond, which could only be viewed through a telescope lens due to the cloudy weather at the time of the visit, was rendered with more vividness on a 4-meter-wide pink fabric, alongside the artist’s imagination.

In his recent solo exhibition 《Come Sit with Me》 (Hakgojae Gallery, 2023), Woosung Lee presented a new series of self-portraits titled ‘I Am Still Working,’ humorously depicting himself at work. In his previous works, Lee rarely included himself in the paintings. Instead, he focused on the people around him and the moments shared with them, revealing his world through their interactions.

Starting with self-portraits, Woosung Lee simplified his image into a yellow character reminiscent of a cartoon figure. The exhausted yellow figure (the artist) appears in various scenes of continuous daily moments, such as eating, working, and leisure, revealing the artist’s unique wit throughout the work.

The large-scale painting At Twilight, Standing on the Mountain (2024) reflects the artist's perspective on the world. The painting features a large crowd of people coming together, composed of individuals with diverse appearances from different generations and genders. Among the figures with various gestures and expressions, animals like dogs and cats, as well as a swarm of butterflies, are also present.

Upon closer inspection, figures wearing dragon, crane, and tiger masks can be found within the crowd. These animals have historically symbolized Arhats, enlightened beings in Buddhist tradition. Through this motif, the artist suggests that among the crowd, someone could be an Arhat. The work emphasizes the preciousness of every individual, and motifs such as swallows, peaches, and white butterflies reflect the artist's wish for everyone's well-being.

Through his works, Woosung Lee captures the diversity and sense of solidarity among humans. Despite the absurd and chaotic reality, the artist looks at the ordinary individuals who live through this moment, crying and laughing, with a loving gaze.

”I wish my paintings on thin fabric reach your heart, yet these paintings are still too small to wholly contain everything I have seen.” (Woosung Lee, from the A letter to you (2017)) 

Woosung Lee earned his BFA in Painting from Hongik University and his MFA in Fine Arts from Korea National University of Arts. His major solo exhibitions include 《Come Sit with Me》 (Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul, 2023), 《But some day, one day, soon》 (DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul, 2021), and 《My Dear》 (Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul, 2017).

His major group exhibitions include 《Time Lapse》 (Pace gallery Seoul, 2024), 《Real DMZ Project : Checkpoint》 (Dora Observatory, Yeongang Gallery, Paju, 2023/ Kunstmuseum of Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany, 2022), 《The Society of Individuals》 (Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Busan, 2021), and Gwangju Biennale 2018 《Imagined Borders》 (Asia Cultural Center, Gwangju, 2018), The First Jinan International Biennial 《Harmony-Power》 (Shandong Art Museum, Jinan, China, 2020), 《Follow, Flow, Feed》 (ARKO Art Center, Seoul, 2020), 《Immortality in the Cloud》 (Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul, 2019), among others.

Lee was selected as an artist-in-residence at the Seoul Art Space Geumcheon (2023), The Physics Room in New Zealand (2016), SeMA Nanji Residency (2015), Cow House Studio in Ireland (2014), MMCA Residency Goyang (2013), and more. His works are in the collections of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Cheongju Museum of Art, and more.

References

• 이우성, Woosung Lee (Artist Website)
• 국립현대미술관, 이우성 | 아무도 내 슬픔에 귀 기울이지 않는다 | 2011 (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), Woosung Lee | Nobody Listen to My Sorrow | 2011)
• 경향신문, 정면을 응시하는 사람들, 2016.04.22
• OCI 미술관, 돌아가다 들어가다 내려오다 잡아먹다 (OCI Museum of Art, Returning Entering Descending Devouring)
• 아마도예술공간, Quizás, Quizás, Quizás (Amado Art Space, Quizás, Quizás, Quizás)
• 리얼디엠지프로젝트, 이우성, 잘 지내고 계신가요? 저는 여기에서 잘 지내고 있습니다 (REAL DMZ PROJECT, Woosung Lee, How are you doing? I'm doing well here) 
• 학고재갤러리, 여기 앉아보세요 (Hakgojae Gallery, Come Sit with Me)
• 서울시립미술관, 나는 우리를 사랑하고 싶다 (Seoul Museum of Art, I want to love us)