Summer.
When the sun is at its hottest,
And the damp air takes its peak,
I daydream.
The image of everything is falling apart…
A sharp cry, cry that is louder than the sound of a wave,
My mind starts to sway.
Gate 1 : The Beginning
From the moment I saw the work of Lee Do-Hyeon for the first time in 2007, in Dae-Gu, I was drawn to its vehement and beautiful color. After then, I could not stop admiring her drastic challenging spirit whenever I saw her various pieces of work. Seeing her work makes one’s eyes and mind delightful. Her work transforms on my own, as if, I were in the artist’s mind. Her endless diverse expression of images seems to take place somewhere between the truth and the surreal. Just like that, I take a step into an unknown world drawn by the artist. The imagination gets bigger by the steps I take into the world. Time changes by the place and the spectators are gradually, or maybe suddenly, guided through the artist’s childhood fantasy. She changes a breakthrough out of the place into her everyday experience, which leads to another fantasy.
Gate 2 : A Metaphor
A sight right before your eyes never gets bored.
The sky, the sea, and the earth seem ordinarily even, but uneven parts are hiding in them. Overall, it seems to be light green in harmony. The Air is full of the scent of rain, and there also are branches and leaves came wandering from the sea. The noon sun casts shadow on the beach. Strange plants of the subtropics are growing out from the cracks. The only exit lies in thinking of the whole as one uncharted space that could be extremely small or exceptionally enormous. She does not limit herself to the stereotyped images, but experiment all simple pleasures of painting inside a plane limited only by frames, which leads her to a different path reflecting the diminished connection between signifier and signified.
Space – A wrong conjecture and beautiful vertigo comes from here. Anyways, imagination and fantasy seems similar and different at the same time.
Gate3: Illusion
The unicorn said to Alice, “If you would believe that I am real, then you are real to me as well.” Sequel to <Alice in Wonderland>
What sort of a line is a line in a work of art? Does it mean a continuously shifting one like in a wave?
Regarding only the fundamental and obvious facts, one can easily find that profound imagination is the most important motive in Lee Do- Hyeon’s works. Artists often conjoin fantasy and hope. That is why we can see the coexistent factors of reality and unreality in the works of Lee Do- Hyeon. My personal interest in her work comes from this as well.
According to social psychology, analysis of a code and artist’s economy can be solved with a wet finger. How can they interpret the meaning of a vague and dreamy hallucination? Do they have better analytical skill than sociologists or scientists? Maybe it is because artists can naturally accept the things that cannot be explained whether it is understandable or not. One can be so into a play because everyone has a fantasy or two. If a person’s body and life style oppose each other, the illusion will persists longer. From that point the truth will not be as important as it used to be.
Except for Lee Do- Hyeon herself, each one of the connecting doors of reality and imagination will come more importantly to the viewers. The artist always struggles to understand and to find answers to the questions that come into her mind. At the same time, she must always think about the unknown world as well. Whispers in her ears and illusions in front of her eyes will constantly influence the artist. To see is to believe. Science, dynamics, laws of physics, and all the experience will only be a reference. Trusting our hearts vibe can only come at the last and final moment.
After all, the line is not a specific one, but is a hoodwinker and a hallucination.
Gate 4 : Decipher
Before everything in the universe gained their names, the world was still beautiful.
Mystery is an unexplainable phenomenon. Once people find out the reason of such phenomenon, then it is no longer a mystery. However, we encounter endless numbers of questions and a few of them are left unanswered. It is said meanings of all things change. They are only waiting for someone to add new meanings to them. Granting a meaning to an object is an act of defining the object. However these definitions of objects are also temporary, not perpetual. They can change through the time or places. Lastly, we continue to imagine more and start to doubt the meanings because the true meaning of things might be disappeared long time ago.
Lee Do- Hyeon resembles Alice from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in many ways. They both are visionaries and when they go off floating in their imagination, they do not limit themselves in reality. They also are similar in a way that they both solve all the problems and riddles by themselves. Lee Do- Hyeon has already taken a bold and courageous step into a new path. The job of artists is to constantly question and find answers to them, just like as alchemists did long ago. Chasing everlasting inspiration and finding solution to it is a process of astonishment and pleasure.
I am curious about the interpretations of viewers to Lee Do- Hyeon’s works, because they leave different impressions to each and each viewers who appreciate them.
Gate 5: Spread Wings
Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies… Grayish blue sky, cluster of moving clouds, heavily stacked clouds.
This unrealistic place symbolizes a view that is not isolated at all and also it represents the artist’s hopes to the world. The Butterflies represent the utopia in the artist’s mind. As if, she were those butterflies which can fly off to anywhere and everywhere through the limitless sky. That is why there are butterflies in her work and those butterflies transcend space-time spectrum. Flying ability has its limit and other flying motions must bear the loading capacity. According to the artist, this flying is a magnificent and enchanting, but very dangerous act.
However, flying always seduces us and what we witness is effort and hopes to fulfill our dreams taking off into the sky. Through a deep introspection, her expectation of ‘fly’ grows larger and the world she meets becomes diverse.
Gate 6 : A Foreign Land
Before setting out, Lee Do- Hyeon portraits in her work, only the pure and good compositions of familiar living spaces and subjects to Koreans. Untouched times and places of emotion are as beautiful as a poem. On one perspective, this is a time formed by the intersection of memories and is esthetic point of view on the world and oneself. Another perspective is that it gains its existence only in a process of depicting huge memories that we cannot see. In trivial incidences, its existence gets even smaller and we can only hope that one might have only the slightest interest in it. Lee Do- Hyeon was sensitive with literature and music and she showed elegancy in her words and actions as a little child. She had expressed her thought of life and surrounding environment with truth. Her thought of art was filled with frankness and resolution. Lee Do- Hyeon’s brief stay in China, Shanghai, made her sight wide, enabling her to observe everything around. She is, indeed, a modern woman with strong sense of subjectivity and has no hesitation in expressing her thought.
Tracing a process needs great courage, and she might be endeavoring constantly to find a daydream identified with her. Her pieces in the past were understanding of within her boundary of life and there were not so aligned. From this kind of works, her creative makes she enters into the space where she wants to understand and puts the memories besides. According to the artist, these series of pieces portrait process of experiencing other worlds.
No one knew Lee Do- Hyeon in her new environment. She became a completely solitary being. Her life had no absolute path which was very unfavorable for her. She was in agony confronting her stifling heart. For her, it was like wandering in a maze looking for an exit. That is why one can be more emotionally attached to ‘Dream’, one of her works, through this trace of wandering. A few of her pieces showing Shanghai’s architecture order represents her life in Shanghai. How did she done a marvelous job depicting only such a good factors from this ordinary and not so attractive architectures and colors? It is abstruse at the same time it is full of vigorous beauty. Artists often encounter anxiety when they confront a culture shock. However, we can find at Lee Do- Hyeon’s exhibition on the experiences in China that she has already adapted to the unfamiliar environment and sublimated it to a perspective of beauty.
When Lee Do- Hyeon first arrived at China, Shanghai was changing rapidly into a global city. With this influence, she came to ‘the forest of artists’ by herself. Experiencing new place, new language, and new culture is what was most significant.
If we look consciously, we can see Lee Hyeon’s work changes as her life changes in China.
Gate 7: Fantasy
If this is a dream, it is a dream that cannot be wakened. Lee Do- Hyeon, I know, is intelligent and elegant. Like her, her works are also elegant. It would not be an easy process, but she cannot give up the elegance in her work. She have seized the two-dimension images and surpassed the dimension. Furthermore, she interprets every personal condition. Her works have been already well disciplined and she has a unique style of her own.
Lee Do- Hyeon’s elegance shows her effort to dream, to act, to find answers ceaselessly.
for exhibition 'DAY DREAM', 2009