Exhibition : September 2 (Fri) - October 2 (Sun), 2011 
Opening : September 2 (Fri)  6:00 PM, 2011
Place : Johyun Gallery, Busan


Lee Kwang Ho’s Cactus, Desire’s foundation Gaining Flesh by Brush’s Caress
Words by Kim Yun Sup (art critique, director at Korean Arts Management Institute)
 
 
Unfamiliar landscape, close but far inside me
 
At first, I thought I knew the paintings well. Cactus drawn as tall as a man and somewhat familiar sceneries looked easy and simple from the outside. But I was wrong, even considering my acquaintances with the artist and visits to his work studio. From the day I promised to write this introduction, I felt like I was lost in a maze as if I were to cross a swamp in the midst of fog with light ahead of me at short distance; my feet sinking in faster and faster and my vision gradually becoming cloudy.
 
It would be adequate just to introduce the artist as “Lee Kwang Ho—Korea’s realism artist” because at a glimpse, his works look as if they are typical still-life landscapes. However, the more I look at them, they are not just realistic representational paintings; if they were to be understood as ordinary still-life works, then it would be no different from persisting watermelon’s inside color is same as its peeling’s color is green. It is Lee Kwang Ho’s paintings’ charm that brings an illusion of escaping the maze with a piece of thin string. I wonder where Lee’s charm comes from—bringing excitement like a mirage that is close but far and experiencing discovery of unfamiliar sceneries within me.
 
First, his work starts with desire and ends with meditation. Thick and straight, the erected cactus appears like male’s phallus, full of confidence. This sexual aura touches upon the finest nerves, radiating breathtaking charm. What is interesting here is a painting, in which observed first through peripheral nerves transforms into aesthetic of movement in silence—proving desire’s end meets with its essence. Wasn’t it true that artists resemble their works? First impression of Lee Kwang Ho was that he was unusually shy. In any way you looked at him, he was far from desire and yearning, but within him, he had planted a seed of desire. It is fresh and witty just thinking of Lee and his works resembling to each other.
 
Next, Lee’s paintings show the intersection of familiarity and unfamiliarity. Cactus formed through hyperrealistic paintings technique depicts ‘kind reality’ like well-developed identification picture. Cactus with size of a hand is exaggerated ten times at least or at most, a hundred times. Feeling like finest veins of the cactus can be seen, the work itself is the definition of the essence of ‘false reality.’ The familiarity everyday object gives and its exaggerated being giving off totally different strangeness can be felt simultaneously. His works taking in the audience’s intellectual curiosity is no different from international Swedish pop artist Thure Oldenburg’s sculptures’ artistic code that depict common objects magnified into monumental size bringing about admiration.
 
We cannot take out the artist’s natural ability to concentrate and his passion in painter’s pure manual labor. “I like when I pick up my brush without any hesitation when I go to work in the morning. If I don’t have particular appointments, I go to work at eight thirty in the morning and come home around eight at night” the artist says. And just like what he said, lee usually concentrates on his works for eight to ten hours daily. At the end of his diligence, Lee had turned the cactus, an ordinary and banal subject, into “a subject that can most effectively materialize the brushstrokes of an oil painting.” If the best economic strength is our own individual hidden potentials, in Lee’s case, it is to find the most appropriate artistic language. The reason why cactus is special to Lee Kwang Ho is because he is interpreting the subject with his own creative language exceeding reenactment of an ordinary shape.
  
Sensible, color of sensuality, unconscious desire
 
When asked to define his works in one statement, Lee Kwang Ho, without hesitation, answers “traces of caress.” I come to think of it, Lee knows his works perfectly. With no doubt, as I look at his paintings, it seems like there is a tongue attached to his brush—witnessing very minute strings layering on top of each other at rapid speed ultimately creating a finished scene. If Jackson Pollock’s unconscious swaying of the paint tins to express his inner narratives, it is as much as same for Lee Kwang Ho, who instead takes it to the next level, unraveling his fine veins as if they are pieces of string, an effect created by the artist’s one-touch quick strokes before oil paint completely dries. And if we can say Pollock was an artless writer, then Lee would be a scenario writer who counts every detail in a fingerprint.
 
Just imagine how much energy is contained within his fingertip trying to unravel the lines that are thin as a string with quick brush strokes like a flash of lightening. Maybe that is way we can sense ‘unconscious energy’ radiating from Lee Kwang Ho’s works. His brushstrokes are like a ritual, awakening the dormant desire in unconsciousness and foreplay dedicated to desire. Therefore, Lee Kwang Ho’s works are desire endlessly courting toward love, visualizing that inner honest inspiration into energy.
 
The artist’s emotions and psychological state are expressed through his or her preference in color. Lee’s sensible and sensual strokes and color combinations give different textures according to its viewers. The construction within canvas is unique using a close-up image of cactus and according to its types, brushes and strokes change in accordance—a proof that his drawings are not simple still-life paintings. The artist’s brushstrokes respect their unique characteristics that various cactuses carry and accepts them as living organisms, thus it is no different from speaking on behalf of his emotions. Artist Lee Kwang Ho takes ‘how to show a subject’s vital force’ as his fate, before considering harmony within screen and construction, touch, and color palettes.
 
From Inter-View series to Cactus and Landscapes
 
Lee’s works have been showing changes for time being, but his theme, ‘desire within me’ has been the same.
His first solo show in 1996 was based on the subject of ‘one’s eyes.’ The artist’s own experience and expression of emotions of inability to look at his loved one eye-to-eye was created into art in terms of inner psychology of lack of love. Whether you are a young man or not, inability to express love is definitely a flaw and a wound. Lee’s paintings are confessions of his stories as if written in a diary. Since then, from year 2001 to 2003, he put ‘family’ as his subject—records of drawings depicting precious experiences of twists and turns when having a child. In accordance to this theme, a series properly named “Meo-Ri-Kak-Gi” (Korean for shaving heads) and titles like “Tae-Mong” (Korean word for a precognitive dream about the birth of a child) appear.
 
Until 2003, the artist finished telling of his personal narratives, then in 2005 as he entered a residence program at Changdong Studio of Museum of Contemporary Art, his “Inter-View” series is introduced. During his stay of one year at the studio, Lee finished 75 portrait paintings, showing his passion towards the new work and finishes the series with 120 interviewees. Thus, the artist’s works before “Inter-View” portraiture series were narrative story telling of Lee’s personal experiences and perspectives.
 
“Cactus” series which started in 2006 until now, has exaggerated the sensual elements with by eliminating narrating and linguistic elements. It was a coincidental event when Lee was passing by Jongro5-ga during the period of contemplation on creating new works, he had discovered a cactus being sold in a flower shop. Cactus was an excellent subject which brought about the elements of touch and vision simultaneously.
 
The artist’s works today attempt to exclude any message or symbols, in order to focus on visual intentions in expressing the cactus; this is why it is painted without overlapping of brushstrokes. On the outside, present cactus series seems totally different from past portraiture works, however, if carefully observed, we can find similarities between them. Both series has placed the subject onto a screen without any background, respects the emotions of the subject itself, attempts to visualize the inner expression, and eliminates the artist’s interference. Like basic logic where it starts with one root, stems growing according to four seasons, leaves changing its colors, flowers blooming and fruits ripening, Lee Kwang Ho’s portraiture, cactus, and landscape works are stems that have grown out of one same root.

Desire’s Charm and Evolution that Cannot Be Denied
 
A man’s desire can be seen as the essence that creates society and culture. Going back and forth between fantasy and reality, we cannot turn away from desire. Maybe that is why there is a saying “Man is a slave to desire.” Out of many cravings, the most basic desires, life and death, can either bound or free a man.
Men have always evolved and environment has changed; people’s heart also has evolved together. In the midst of all this, there is desire. Lee Kwang Ho touches upon this inner dormant desire. Lee picks musician named Yoon Yi Sang as artistic role model during his college years and maybe that is why Lee’s desire seems quiet as if asleep but carries a unique rhythm going back and forth between lives between instincts and survival, creating endless upheavals. The energy radiating through his works is eventually a message about life.
 
Being alive, wanting to be alive, happiness of desire…Lee Kwang Ho’s works even deal with man’s basic value of existence. At a glimpse, it looks like solid form, but up close, it is an illusion created by infinite number of thin lines cramped together. It seems palpable but it is not. It is the reality yet an illusion. it is color yet it is empty. There is only man’s desire thirst for its existence in between. Thus it is no coincidence that we can faintly see Buddhism ideology of empty or Taoism ideology of effortless action.
 
What are we going to witness at the desire’s foundation gaining flesh by the caress of Lee Kwang Ho’s brushstrokes?