Lee Jinju Act 9, 2024

Act 9 is a powdered pigment, animal skin glue and water painting on unbleached cotton canvas.

The composition on the shaped canvas creates a trompe-l’oeil effect whereby the work appears to be composed of three overlapping canvases behind which the three figures hide. In the first section, one sees two figures: one standing and the other kneeling. Of the standing figure, one only sees part of a face and two hands cupped around a sheet of paper as if listening to the edge of the frame. Of the kneeling figure, one only sees two feet and its rear in shear black tights. The kneeling figure seems to be supporting a snow drift on its back, surrounded by an old tree trunk and a thin wooden pole that almost looks as thought it could be a stretcher bar of a canvas. The bottom of this pole is burning, as is the top of another, which is painted as if behind the standing figure. In the second section, we see more of a figure, albeit from behind and in contrapposto, with one arm bent awkwardly holding another wooden bar. This same arm has a thin scratch, as if from the branches poking out from the snowdrift. On the outmost edge of the work, Lee has painted burn marks as if the canvas itself had caught on fire.

Act 9 contains many motifs central to Lee’s practice. The most striking one is her staging of her paintings as cascading screens. In Korean, the term for screen has multiple meanings such as a stage curtain or membrane. The artist enjoys playing with these gaps of meanings in her work and sees the shaped canvases as additionally having an architectural presence that she imagines extending into the gallery space so that its walls become the margins of the works. Another central element of Lee’s practice is how she renders her figures. The realistic figures, painted with traditional Korean materials and techniques, are reminiscent of Joseon dynasty portraits, capturing facial textures, blemishes, and fine hairs. This treatment of the figure adds a certain fragility and vulnerability to Lee’s subjects, as one sees here with the delicately rendered scratch and discoloration in the skin of the standing figure.