Lee, Young-Sik
Berlin, Germany
email: yslee19888@gmail.com
I paint, therefore I am.
Why do you paint? This is an interesting question. At least I know one thing. Paint pictures
is a Sisyphus work. Sisyphus, the persistent worker. His curse is in Canto 11 Homer's Odyssey.
His punishment is to roll a boulder up a steep slope. Just before he reached the end of the slope, the stone slipped from him and he has to get off again start at the beginning. After completing my second degree in communication design, I tried to paint pictures properly again. I can express my subject better with representational painting than with abstract painting. My studio is on the 3rd floor of a former Berlin Kindl brewery, with a stingy side window and a rather outdated upholstered armchair. Narrow iron stairs to the top. The way to my studio leads through a lively and cheerful street in Berlin's Neukölln. I call my studio the Kindom of the beholder. A painter means to me Actor, observer, perpetrator, victim and at the same time spectator in one. Outside in front of my studio you live like the Lotophages-Island. People enjoy life under the intoxicating influence of the lotus fruits. When you eat lotus you forget your desperation, your failure and your life goal. I cannot say in the affirmative whether Artwork can really give people consolation and healing. But I believe in the power of Art. Again, I paint, therefore I am.
Narcissus & farewell. Acrylic on Canvas. 180cm x 100cm. 2012
1. What is your background ?
I am a German-Korean painter & graphic artist, lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Since 2020, Judge for Drawing Contest & Member of the Global Artists Committee at Asia Art Association in Singapore (AAA). / Title <The Artist of this week by AAA. / Lecturer for Fine Art painting in acrylic at Cooperative Menschen eG Berlin. / Since 2020 resident artist at PAKS Gallery in Vienna, Austria.
Since 1990 I have been living in Berlin, where my mother taught as a guest Professor for East Asian literature at the University of Leipzig. I studied at the Freie Akademie for Kunst Fine Art & project studies in Berlin. I forwards studied at the Berlin Technical University for Communication Design and Visual & Motion Design with Professor Hans Grimmling. For my artistic precision and deepening, I received private lessons for Fine Arts with Professor Arno Rink, rector at the famous art University Leipzig and with university lecturer Herbert Vicenz for artistic anatomy and nature studies for several years.
I have numerous solo and group exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig, Cologne, Hamburg, Schwerin Würzburg in Germany. I was invited to numerous international Art Fair, e.g. Art Innsbruck in Austria, Parallax Art Fair in Chelsea- London, Parallax Art Fair in Kensington- London and Gallery O Maribo- Copenhagen Denmark, etc. / In 2019, I was invited by the Ministry of Culture Cuba to a solo and group exhibition for 500th Anniversary Havana City in Havana, Cuba, as a German delegation and my printing works were exhibited in Havana. / Collector of my painting works: Humboldt University Klein gallery in Berlin, Germany, and private Collectors in Madrid and Berlin.
I have also been invited to several international Art Fair in 2020-2022. My works are already on the way, e.g. for MAMAC Modern Art Museum exhibition in Austria, International Contemporary Art Fair Carrousel du LOUVRE in Paris, PAKs Gallery Representation as Gallery Artist in Vienna, and Clio Art Fair 2022 in Manhattan in New York, USA for Cannes Biennale 2022 in France, Biennale Basel 2022 in Swiss.
2. What dose your work aim to say ?
In 2009, I completed two studies in Berlin, namely Fine Art and communication, visual and motion design. Over the next 12 years I focused on three topics. These are the <Human Portrait>, <Animal Study> and the Myths <Exodus Cycle (The Golden Fleece)>.
I understood humans as being in a borderline situation, a huge bracket that appeared as birth and exit from death. Portraits Man's work consists in showing the story the panorama of a person in the picture. In animals, we explore the wonders and symbols of creation, how people interpreted life in mythology, i.e. the principle of life. My topic at the moment is <Exodus cycle (the golden fleece), namely Utopia and failure. Man persistently dreams of utopia, the best state of life. However, knowing the absolute limit, i.e. the absolute failure of death, man progresses. That is the splendor and privilege of man. I interpret it in my Artworks.
3. How does your work comment on current social or political issues ?
Now we are witnessing a disaster called the Covid 19 era, the pandemic of the 21st century. The 21st century is the time when the best science and the best gold in human history, i.e. materials, were amassed. It is the height of humanism that began after the 18th century. At its peak, people are being desperately attacked by enemy, an almost invisible enemy named Covid 19 who can only be seen through a microscope. In my work, animal study symbolizes an important expression of the animal, that is, of nature, which opposes people who rush like crazy towards human utopia.
4. Who are your biggest influences ?
I am an enthusiast of Francis Bacon and Walton Ford. Francis Bacon was the painter of ripped flesh and tattered bodies. He almost hung his pictures in gilded frames, e. B. Hall number 26 in London's Tate Britain. The intensity and radicalism of his pictures with bizarre, comical, brutal details led me to the life-critical shock — the aesthetics of Horror. The paintings by the painter Walton Ford too, e.g. his exhibition in 2010 in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and his watercolors in 2021 in the Max Hetzler Gallery in Berlin. His predominantly large-format works of birds, quadrupeds, reptiles and other animals with social similes and black satires, which were inspired by the American ornithologist and zodiac artist John James Audubon. His passion for painting and his technical perfection is overwhelming to me. Homer (Odyssey), The Shanhaijing (the oldest Chinese mythology book), the mythologist Joseph John Campbell and his masterpiece The Hero with a Thousand Faces are my absolute spring of inspiration.
5. How has your art evolved over the years ?
At the beginning of my work I always set a topic, and under this topic I made a series, that is, <Cycle> and deepened the topics. Portrait-Animal Study-Exodus Cycle (The Golden Fleece). In the current topic of the Exodus cycle, 12 artworks are already being created, e.g. I've been working on two stories since September 2009. First: treat 10 images the same subject. The vacuum and the emptiness of existence. On the large format pictures there is a protagonist standing, sitting, silent, unsuspectingly hoping. The pictures with the silent figures in the middle of the moment. The gestures of innocence. The connection between macrocosm and microcosm, moment and eternity wanted I describe. I wanted to give the documentary feel of the moment, however at the same time a painterly presence. And 3 other pictures: A chronicle of a requiem of the Animals. These motifs were inspired by Walton Ford. When I start painting, the invisible becomes visible. Figures transform, me I am looking forward to the metamorphoses of inspiration and message. A painter has to deliver high quality and there is no excuse for mistakes in art. Here's just that Perfection is the greatest good. That is the fate and the splendor of art.
6. What does art mean to you ?
For me, art is the work of documenting and reinterpreting human life and the universe. Exodus cycle, for example, is also a reinterpretation of human life. Greek heroes build a ship, the Argo, to conquer The Golden Fleece, the most valuable treasure of the time, and embark on an expedition that is already programmed for an arduous journey. The Golden Fleece was the best utopia in the Greek universe at that time. But in the end the Golden Fleece that he obtained after a murder was nothing more than a giant symbol that hung in the air. That doesn't give them a utopia. What is important is the exodus, i.e. the departure. Just the departure, which they dared to venture, although they had a premonition that they would have failed, that was a treasure. Nothing is guaranteed, but the exodus alone that happens anyway. Through this exodus the people have advanced and arrived into the 21st century.
7. What is the most valuable piece of art to you ?
Cave painting in the cave of Altamira in Spain from old Stone age, around 36000years ago, and
The creation of Adam by Michelangelo- ceiling painting of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1522).
8. What's next for you in the future ?
I am slowly learning that success, stranding, despair, and the abyss are great despite the many contradictions in the world's phenomena. As a painter, I would like to paint <The Principle of Hope>, which, like Exodus (Moses from the Bible) and The Departure (by Franz Kafka), stands as a monument in human history and yet always presents the supreme symbol of utopia. In my future artworks I would like to choose hope instead of despair and praise instead of curse. Hope and praise, for me that is human dignity and privilege. And through invitations and participation in the ongoing international exhibitions or art fair, I would like to experience how vigorously other artists are interpreting the era of the 21st century. I would also like to take part in various reinterpretations, resistances and praises of the life of contemporary artists. I give a standing ovation for the title of Beethoven Symphony 9, <Ode to Joy>. Samuel Beckett said: Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.
Jason & the golden Fleece. 50cm x 60cm Acrylic on canvas
