Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Lee has held solo exhibitions including 《Awaken Gills》 (Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul, 2024), 《SUPERNATURAL》 (OCI Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023), and 《Water Filled Plastic Glove》 (Dohjidai Gallery, Kyoto, Japan, 2020).

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Lee has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《The Vanishing Horizon: Episode.02》 (WWNN, Seoul, 2024), 《Artience Park》 (Seongnam Arts Center, Seongnam, 2023), 《Debugging》 (Mirrored Sphere Gallery, Seoul, 2022), 《XxX (Two Times)》 (Rund Gallery, Seoul, 2021), and 《Shanghai Photo Fair 2019》 (Shanghai Exhibition Centre, Shanghai, China, 2019).

Awards (Selected)

Lee was selected for the ‘SAM 2024 Open Call’ organized by Sungkok Art Museum, ‘OCI Young Creatives 2023’ at OCI Museum of Art, and ‘Offprint London 2018’ at Tate Modern.

Originality & Identity

Jeongkeun Lee’s practice begins with a critical inquiry into the relationship between photographic images and the “frame” that surrounds them. As seen in the early ‘Personal Ritual’ (2019–) series, he was interested in visualizing invisible spiritual values and ritualistic symbolism. The installation works presented in 《Personal Ritual》(SEOJIN ARTSPACE, Seoul, 2019) traversed the boundary between reality and imagination, constructing human wishes and beliefs through images. In this period, photography functioned not merely as a record but as a medium that reveals what cannot be seen.
 
Afterwards, the artist’s practice underwent a significant shift following a decisive event—the flooding of his studio. As the frames that had existed to protect the images were rendered useless, he began to focus on the physical fragility of photography as a medium. This experience became a turning point, shifting the center of his work from the image itself to the “structure surrounding the image,” and marking the starting point for reconfiguring the relationship between photograph and frame.
 
This transformation becomes evident in works such as Navidance(2021). The frame is no longer a secondary device that protects the photograph but expands into a sculptural entity that overwhelms the image. Metal structures covered with spikes or thick steel exteriors capture the viewer’s gaze before the image itself, destabilizing the hierarchy between inside and outside. In this moment, the work raises the question of “what is essential,” reversing the relationship between image and structure.
 
This line of inquiry becomes more clearly articulated in the solo exhibition 《SUPERNATURAL》(OCI Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023). The artist explores how exaggerated forms stimulate human perception more intensely than reality through the concept of “Supernormal Stimulus.” By combining artificially staged natural images with exaggerated metal frames, the work disrupts the relationship between the real and the artificial, the essence and the exterior, critically revealing how images are consumed.
 
In the recent solo exhibition 《Awaken Gills》(Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul, 2024), this relationship expands into the concept of “mimicry.” The photograph and the frame are no longer separate elements but combine like a single organism, transforming into forms that evoke specific living beings. In this way, his work moves beyond a simple structural experiment toward a state in which image and material evolve together.

Style & Contents

Jeongkeun Lee’s work is centered on photography, yet its form increasingly takes on sculptural and installation-based characteristics. In the early ‘Personal Ritual’ series, he created ritualistic spaces through installations that combined transparent plastic gloves, natural elements, air, and water. During this period, his work focused on constructing invisible beliefs and emotions visually through the combination of photography and installation.
 
In the works from 2022—PPI + MeandmE(2022), Ni-Alloy+My giraffe drawing(2022), Mig01+Thunderbolt(2022), and Rover413+Almagest(2022)—the method of combining image and frame is more fully developed. The titles themselves are formed by merging the names of the image and the frame, allowing the two to be perceived as a single structure. In particular, Mig01+Thunderbolt expands the visual experience by connecting the properties of the image with a kinetic frame that moves vertically.
 
A key feature of this period is the use of the “MacGuffin” device. Moving frames or exaggerated structures are not essential to the narrative, yet they function to attract the viewer’s attention. Rather than directly explaining meaning, these devices operate as mechanisms that generate motivation for viewing and induce sensory immersion.
 
In 《SUPERNATURAL》, this strategy is intensified. Works such as Temptation trap(2023), Cleaning under rain(2023), and Water world(2023) present staged natural images within flamboyant and exaggerated metal frames. The surfaces of the frames emphasize material traces such as grinder marks and reflective effects, creating strong visual tension with the images. Here, the photograph is no longer central but generates meaning through its relationship with the exterior structure.
 
In recent works, this formal approach develops in a more organic direction. In Drip Drop(2024) and Fore primitive(2024), the frame transforms into forms that evoke animal or human bodies, combining with the photograph to form a single “body.” Images such as trails of light, scratched surfaces, and smoke emphasize tactile qualities, expanding the work beyond vision into a sensory experience.

Topography & Continuity

Jeongkeun Lee’s work begins with the medium of photography but has gradually expanded into a hybrid form that includes sculpture, installation, and kinetic structures. At its core lies a continuous inquiry into the relationship between the image and the structure that surrounds it. While his early work focused on visualizing invisible spiritual meanings, it later shifted toward the physical conditions and outer shell of the image, and more recently has developed into a stage where image and structure combine as a single organism.
 
In particular, his work has evolved from the function of “protection” to an “exaggerated exterior,” and further into a “mimicking body.” The ritualistic spaces of 《Personal Ritual》, the exaggerated frames of 《SUPERNATURAL》, and the biological structures of 《Awaken Gills》 demonstrate this progression in stages.
 
Lee’s work actively intervenes in the material conditions outside the image—especially the frame. Rather than dismantling the image itself, he proposes new ways of perceiving photography by transforming the conditions that surround it. His work, formed through the interplay between image and exterior, vision and touch, object and environment, exists not as a fixed result but as a state open to change. In this way, his practice—centered on relationships and conditions—remains open to continuous variation across different media and environments.