How to paint time ?
How to account for time past, present, time suspended or stretched – a river flowing, mountain chains, what is buried beneath our feet or inscribed in the sky?
To answer clearly would be impossible. The interest lies in the questions themselves, the reflections they lead to and the attempts to answer.

Lee Jin Woo creates landscapes, inhabited by the notion of time and varying perception levels. Landscapes with no specific geographic identity, sometimes very detailed landscapes or, on the contrary, merely suggested. The viewpoint varies between frontal or seen from above; compositions are built most often around a central axis. The elements figured (trees, mountains, lakes, sources…) can be resumed to a very simple almost naïve form, a full concentration placed in a seemingly void environment but which is rarely so. Yet, to realize this one must look longer to perceive that the surface hides other images buried in the matter, made on deeper layers, like strata, strata of time, memory or dream.
These strata or successive layers belong to a technique created by Lee Jin Woo who uses traditional Korean paper, Hanji made from the mulberry tree. This fine, resistant and opaque paper is worked in superimposition, sheet after sheet upon which he paints or buries matter (pigments, charcoal, earth…) then making certain elements reappear. The process is long and laborious, an input not only in substance but also in time which signifies for the artist making himself available. The result is shaped as a painting but in between two and three dimensions with strong materiality, textured like bark or rock.
Attention lies not only on the pictorial surface yet also on what one can see or divine in transparency. Thus, a surprising amalgamation exists between surface space and deeper perspective, between void and filled space or between Asian and Occidental tradition. In short, a space ‘other’ – where the repetition of almost identical elements slides from an immediate, very concrete impression towards a form of infinite space. In an interview with Helena Staub in 2006, Lee Jin Woo mentioned the difference between the vision through an occidental glass window and that through a traditional Korean window covered with paper: between seeing or sensing. These two perceptions can be found in his works. If Lee Jin Woo is marked by two cultures, his country of origin South Korea and his country of adoption France, the expression and concern in his work go beyond questions of culture. Profoundly human, his work is realized slowly and simply with an insistence touching those who encounter it. A feeling of calmness emanates, like time stopped giving access to an elsewhere. Its material form of organic and mineral aspect invites the hand, the eye, whilst anchoring emerging feelings in a reality at once terrestrial and original.

Since 1986 Lee Jin Woo (born 1959) exhibits regularly in Korea and France. In 2006, Galerie Manes in Prague welcomed a very important show of his work. The coming exhibition will be his second solo show at the GALERIE MARIA LUND, the first one took place in 2007. Meanwhile the gallery has also presented his works at the KIAF in Seoul (2008, 2009). In 2008, Lee Jin Woo was invited to participate in the Holland Paper Biennal at the Rijswijk Museum, Holland.

• From 20.10.2009 Lee Jin Woo’s works will be visible at: www.marialund.com
  
• PUBLISHING: a leaflet with reproductions of a selection of works.
  
• OPENING: Thursday 22nd October 2009 from 6 – 9 pm, the artist will be present.
• The exhibition ends Saturday 5th December 2009.
  
• Exceptionally the gallery will be closed Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th November 2009.
  

For further information about the  availability of visuals, please contact :
GALERIE MARIA LUND     48 rue de Turenne     75003 Paris

Tuesday-Saturday 12-7 pm    
ph : (33) 01 42 76 00 33    cellphone : (33) 06 61 15 99 91    fax :(33) 01 42 76 00 10