이상원

  Since Lee Sara made her debut as an artist, she has been painting girl dolls with looks reflecting indifferent or ambiguous feelings. Her doll paintings with highly realistic expression and classical composition attracted the attention of the art world and her name became widely known. Since then, she has been carrying out active artistic activities through a great deal of gallery exhibitions and art collaboration with enterprises. Her works manifest philosophy-combining painting with history of history of ideas (Geistesgeschichte) or cultural history (Kulturgeschichte) in terms of style as well as traces influenced by Pop art and hyperrealism. To be specific, her previous works created a mood as if one object was doing a sort of theatrical monologue through empathy on the screen with clear contrast between medium chroma and chiaroscuro. On the other hand, in this exhibition, she expresses a more colorful and optimistic world through the canvas composed and filled with numerous objects. In particular, her works of this exhibition constitute plane (2D) images, which are incomparable with her previous works.

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  The works of this exhibition depict all whirling things, trees, plants, flowers, the sun, the stars, as well as faces of dragons and lizards. In terms of methodology, she still sticks to exquisite coloring and drawing equal to the previous works. However, in terms of figuration, they reminds us of festivals and carnivals for they are composed of a variety of forms from nature and mythology. Along with geometric patterns, faces of dragons or dinosaurs appear in the screen. A creature with ambiguous discrimination between a human and an animal looking like an imaginary being is looking at the front towards the audience in the middle of the jungle full of sharp leaves. In this figuration, the lines and images with repeated scratches are combined with absolutely bright and complex forms. After coloring, she creates her wished images and texture by scratching the completely dry surface with a sharp needle. The scratch process requires balance of mind beyond mere techniques or labor. The process of making forms and patterns by drawing lines through scratching looks like that of embroidering based on a needle and thread. The surface of canvas is covered with rugged texture created by strands of the fabric, and the artist fills the uneven texture with paint to make a smoother and more even surface. By scratching on top of it, she makes rugged and uneven texture. This newly created ruggedness fills the entire surface of the work and represents like a skin embracing the body of the painting. This process of scratching complex and complicated figurations and splendorous colors one by one reminds us of that of inlaying the surface of ceramics in diverse colors and forms. The thinnest relief or etching and painting are constituted in symbols, signs and patterns, and assimilate each other with delicacy. 

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A Carnival of life: Dream and Jungle or Infinity _Kim No-am