A selection of work from South Korean artist Sujin Lee. Currently based in Seoul, Lee received her BFA and MFA in Fine Arts from Kookmin University. Her practice centers on identifying and giving form to the negative emotions that emerge from personal experience and the unstable reality she inhabits. Lee’s paintings are often rooted in anxiety and fear, and draw from emotionally resonant imagery from cinematic stills and scenes. Stripped from their source, Lee’s collection of everyday objects and interior spaces nonetheless evoke a shared sense of unease.
The familiarity of the scenes is subtly destabilized. Lee uses this tension to explore the universal yet deeply personal nature of anxiety. Her works are not dramatic expressions but restrained ones—rendered with high-contrast colours, obsessive detail, flat compositions, and a deliberate lack of spatial depth—allowing viewers to reflect on their own discomfort and uncertainty. Through this method, Lee’s paintings evoke a stillness charged with psychological weight, offering a contemplative space where fear may paradoxically bring about a kind of clarity or calm.
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