Lee Bae Korea, b. 1956
Lee Bae was born in 1956, Chungdo. He worked in Korea after graduating from Hongik University with B.A. Fine art. When Korean government liberalized overseas trips for the citizens, in 1989, he left to France, where every artist dreams for once. It was an important period not only for him since his art life was transited, but also for the world since it was a transition period, dreaming of change all over the world; the Berlin Wall was fallen, and the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 was taken place. In 1989, when he worked in Paris, a significant change in his work that came with much change in his perception was the development of ‘black’.
Several reasons for his black-covered canvas are assumed, but one thing clear is that what he believed in disappeared into the black surface as a wall collapsed through his unexpected experience in a new circumstance. Lee Bae's black work is a good example of being distinguished from other monochromatic works in that it is saturated by extremely compressing all realistic elements while the monochromatic painting style of Korean abstract art restrained the pleasure of form and color and sought to purify the mind.
In that sense, materiality is a very important factor in his work and 'charcoal' is a major material for Lee Bae. This is because of the nature of charcoal, which is reborn as new energy through the disappearance of incomplete combustion products that are burned down if the material of wood is not hard and only dense and hard wood remains to be converted into new energy. Entering 2000, the possibility of Lee Bae's black leads to the study of time beyond space, and the blackness of charcoal, which covered the entire screen, appears on the canvas in an ambiguous symbolic form as the dense black ink is mixed with a medium such as wax.
The wax medium series is a work that Lee Bae has been doing since 2004, creating a sense of thickness by layering. The process is reminiscent of Eastern ink and Hanji, or calligraphy, re-imagined with a modern physicality and sensibility. In the wax medium works, the beeswax takes up the white part, while in Western painting, the Matière becomes thicker with more brushstrokes, but the wax medium series uses an oriental painting technique that goes inward with more brushstrokes. The white part is filled with beeswax, not nothing, and especially in his wax medium works, the strokes drawn with black charcoal, which contain all the colors in the white margin, are like floating shapes and carry a sense of weight within.
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Lee BaeFrom Fire, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas100 x 81 cm (40F)
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Lee BaeFrom Fire, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas100 x 81 cm (40F)
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Lee BaeFrom Fire, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas100 x 81 cm (40F)
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Lee BaeFrom Fire, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas175 x 230 cm (150F)
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Lee BaeFrom Fire, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100F)
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Lee BaeFrom Fire, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100F)
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Lee BaeFrom Fire, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100F)
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Lee BaeFrom Fire, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas175 x 230 cm (150F)
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Lee BaeIssu du feu, 2000burned wooden stakes400 x 170 x 80 cm
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Lee BaeIssu du feu, 2021charcoal mass and elastic string370 x 170 x 160 cm
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Lee BaeIssu du feu - M14, 2000charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100)
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Lee BaeLandscape, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100F)
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Lee BaeLandscape, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100F)
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Lee BaeLandscape, 2000-2016charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100F)
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Lee BaeLandscape S13A, 2016charcoal on canvas130 x 97 cm (60F)
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Lee BaeLandscape-2, 1999charcoal on canvas190 x 140 cm (120)
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Lee BaeLandscape-4, 2001charcoal on canvas190 x 140 cm (120)
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Lee BaeUntitled, 2004acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100F)
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Lee BaeUntitled, 2007acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas
73 x 60 cm (20F) -
Lee BaeUntitled, 2007acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas73 x 60 cm (20F)
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Lee BaeUntitled, 2008acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas
162 x 130 cm (100F) -
Lee BaeUntitled, 2008acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas130 x 97 cm (60F)
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Lee BaeUntitled, 2008acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas
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Lee BaeUntitled, 2008acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas150 x 80 cm (80)
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Lee BaeUntitled, 2009acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas195 x 150 cm (130F)
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Lee BaeUntitled, 2010acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas162 x 130 cm (100F)
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Lee BaeUntitled, 2011acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas
73 x 60 cm (20F) -
Lee BaeUntitled, 2014Untitled
2014
acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas
116 x 89 cm (50F) -
Lee BaeUntitled, 2016acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas
162 x 130 cm (100F) -
Lee BaeUntitled, 2020acrylic medium with charcoal on canvas92 x 60 cm (30F)