Jaeseok Lee’s paintings, which have previously unfolded surreal landscapes through the fragmentation and deconstruction of anthropomorphized objects and mechanized bodies juxtaposed in unfamiliar ways, have recently undergone a significant transformation. His latest work, Linkage(○―○―●―○―○)(2024), exemplifies this shift. Departing from a fixed, singular viewpoint that he had consistently adhered to, this piece presents an expansive mapping-like composition where multiple perspectives and positions coexist simultaneously. The entire surface is covered with layered mountains, creating a map-like format where every location exists at once. The mountains, valleys, and rivers are flattened and abstracted into a pattern without hierarchical distinctions, making the work resemble an abstract painting. In contrast, the foreground at the bottom of the painting is meticulously rendered, depicting dry, cracked earth alongside a single summer flower in full bloom. The barren, arid ground, seemingly incapable of sustaining life, starkly contrasts with the deep blue-green mountains and rivers in the distance, emphasizing the resilience of the lone Erigeron flower standing amidst the desolation. Lee’s masterful use of trompe-l'œil further amplifies the symbolic vitality of the summer flower, infusing the composition with an otherworldly, surreal beauty.

“…It was the kind of painting that only those on an airplane could see. When you ascend above the clouds in a hot air balloon… glimpsing the serene blue sky momentarily through the mist… at that altitude.”

The juxtaposition of the infinitely monotonous flat landscape with the meticulously detailed summer flower symbolizes an alternative reality constructed and arranged by the artist—a metaphor for the world in which we struggle and exist. In this sense, it parallels the virtual environments of computer games, which present another reality that can be accessed instantly with the flick of a switch or the press of a button. The flattened depiction of mountains, valleys, and rivers, structured into a web-like space of interlinked symbols (○) and signs (○), visualizes yet another form of reality—the World Wide Web (WWW), an endless, interconnected digital realm.

Since 1989, the internet has provided a virtual space that can be entered at will, offering an alternative reality and location. Through the aesthetics of Surrealism, exaggerated sexual imagery, science-fiction-inspired motifs, and computer game aesthetics have become some of the most readily accessible visual experiences. Lee, having spent countless hours in his middle school years immersed in game programming, once disclosed his deep engagement with digital world-building. At one point, he received an opportunity to collaborate with an indie game company, where he was responsible for designing backgrounds and maps. This process involved placing pixelated texture tiles onto a virtual grid, layering elements, and integrating objects like trees, grass, and rocks—an approach akin to cartographic mapping using aerial photography. This formative experience has profoundly influenced his artistic practice, allowing him to merge traditional perspective techniques with the hyper-realistic, three-dimensional illusions exclusive to web and gaming environments, thereby amplifying the visual impact of his compositions. “By presenting a virtual space within the canvas, as perceived through my perspective, along with the interactive (or seemingly interactive) images within it, I aim to blur the boundary between the real and the virtual.”

Within his works, Lee employs natural elements or objects—either singular or multiple—as symbolic motifs, spatially charting them as coordinates. These symbols, connected through points and lines, serve as a visual language that links reality with the virtual, different worlds with each other. The gravitational pull of the central sign (●) materializes through the repetition of linking symbols (○), extending the mapped space omnidirectionally across the canvas. Much like a spider’s web or constellations in the night sky, the world unfolds endlessly through these connections. By mapping out and structuring a game-like virtual space from an omniscient linker’s perspective, Lee demonstrates how the game world, while similar to reality, also diverges from it. The expanded visual range permitted by virtual environments grants perspectives that would otherwise be impossible in the physical world. This spatial logic, fundamental to gaming imagery, is seamlessly integrated into Lee’s painting compositions.

Most of Lee’s works are meticulously constructed around regulatory lines—strict grids that dictate the structural arrangement of motifs. This is evident in his earlier works such as Fragment (2016), The Instructions with the Body (2018), and Body Masses (2018), as well as in recent pieces incorporating linkage symbols, such as Linkage(○―○―●―○―○) (2024), Range of Fire_3 (2021), Connected Islands (2022), Pine Tree (2022), Connected Yet Separated Boundaries (2022), and Constellation_2 (2023).

In his earlier works like Fragment, The Instructions with the Body, and Body Masses, Lee filled the canvas with scattered, fragmented human bodies and mechanical or geometric forms, reminiscent of disassembled model kit parts. Within these compositions, the human body transformed into machine-like structures, and mechanical components took on anthropomorphic qualities. In contrast, later works such as Range of Fire_3, Connected Islands, and Pine Tree replace these modular arrangements with interconnected symbols such as numbers, letters, stars, and circles.

The modular structure of earlier works suggests two key implications. First, it establishes a new relational framework between the human body and objects. Second, it acknowledges the contradictions inherent in modern systems of order—industrialization, nationalism, and digitization—despite their alluring sense of structure. Lee highlights the notion that just as a firearm’s function is optimized through the precise assembly of its components, so too is a body’s functionality reinforced by the seamless operation of its internal organs. Through this structural analogy, the fundamentally disparate entities of firearms and human anatomy are united within a singular, systematic world. Consequently, in works like The Instructions with the Body and Body Masses, human bodies and mechanical components are fragmented, severed, and arranged within the same hierarchical structure, while his self-portraits in Studio Scene substitute his figure with an accumulation of red geometric forms and tools.

Lee’s works thus foreground objects—firearms, geometric forms, tools, and machines—by anthropomorphizing them or using them as avatars of the artist himself, thereby reconfiguring the relationship between humanity and objects. The surrealistic and illusory nature of his paintings emerges from these juxtapositions of discordant images—realities colliding and the gaps between them materializing into a visual language.

Meanwhile, Jaeseok Lee focuses on the "individual" or "fragment" hidden behind the seductive aspects of discipline, control, and management systems that reinforce structures of "collectivity" or "wholeness." The variously sized and shaped body fragments within the canvas are transformed and sculpted body masses referencing the artist’s own joints or distinctive anatomical structures. Though these irregular body masses conform to the rectangular frame and grid framework, they possess smooth flesh-like textures, inducing grotesque hallucinatory scenes.

It is well known that the grid-based practices of modern systems, justified under the name of progress, have, on the other hand, functioned like a nightmare, dismissing and erasing the differences of individuals and their everyday lives. Despite prolonged protests from many, these contradictions within modern systems have persisted. However, Lee does not cynically criticize this paradox; rather, he presents it in a neutral tone, transforming the tragic reality into something beautiful and sublime, surreal and fantastical.

Jaeseok Lee employs techniques that bear conceptual or formal resemblance to the Surrealists' attempts to "go beyond painting"—such as collage, frottage (rubbing), and grattage (scraping). However, unlike the Surrealists, who sought to transcend painting, he aims for paintings that remain "painterly."

Using oil and acrylic paint on canvas as his primary medium, Lee deliberately collages contradictory images within his compositions. In general, the juxtaposition of contradictory images induces psychological disturbance and anxiety, which in turn triggers an open-ended, hallucinatory illusionary world. However, Lee’s approach operates on a different level. For example, he repeatedly applies layers of acrylic paint on the back of the canvas to minimize the paint’s natural gloss. While this attempt may not be considered a groundbreaking experiment, as it closely aligns with classical painting techniques, his deliberate reduction of gloss enhances the depth of color, which integrates contradictory spatial elements into a coherent whole.

Recently, Lee has begun priming his canvases multiple times with thick, water-based white paint, layering it three to four times to create an uneven thickness. He then paints over this surface, which, due to the repeated layers, results in a rough texture and an uncalculated, uneven perspective within the space, introducing a sense of instability and randomness.

By maintaining the rigid and stable grids of classical painting and computer game imagery while striving for a uniquely "painterly" quality, Lee’s technical approach reflects his reverence and response to both traditional painting and the information systems that expand contemporary reality. Herein lies the merit of Jaeseok Lee’s painting: by discovering the potential for restoring the traditional value of painting—once deemed obsolete by the loud and aggressive experiments of the avant-garde—he seems to be arguing for a "painterly" painting within the context of images generated and transmitted on the web.

Meanwhile, a defining characteristic of Jaeseok Lee’s painting is still the "juxtaposition or combination of two unrelated realities." His paintings, reminiscent of the enigmatic line from early 20th-century Surrealist poet Lautréamont—"as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table"—undoubtedly exude a surrealistic atmosphere.

For instance, fragmented, objectified, and mechanized flesh pieces resembling model kit parts coexist within a single canvas with components, tools, and objects containing red, blood-circulating vessels. Skulls that are both objects and bodies, severed body parts connected to tools, shoes, wooden floors, white cloths, and geometric shapes are arranged through formal and conceptual disjunctions, as well as connections and recompositions. Recently, symbols such as star shapes, black and white circles, bursting white spheres of light, and even animated glitches from video games have appeared in his paintings, further linking anthropomorphized nature and objects across various realities and methods.

These images externally present two seemingly unrelated realities. That is, objects vs. bodies, tools/geometric shapes vs. blood/bodily fluids, stones/forests (nature) vs. skulls/mannequins (body/object), nature vs. symbols, stars vs. bears, and sun vs. moon all exist as separate, irreconcilable realities and entities. Nevertheless, they are arranged within the canvas under a classical yet unsettling perspective and gravitational pull. Lee’s distinctively striking and provocative imagery, with its unstable juxtapositions and irrational narratives, finds its origins in a series of events and experiences during his military service.

According to the artist, after completing his freshman year at university, he was drafted for military service, during which he suffered an injury, fracturing his right ankle bone. The subsequent surgery, in which his broken bone was fixed with prosthetic materials and screws, left an indelible impression on him, awakening a new awareness of reality and existence. Lying terrified on a cold stainless-steel operating table, the wounded body, the machine tools and screws implanted within his flesh to hold his fractured bone together, and the persistent foreign sensation of the prosthetic inside his body for several months became the foundation for Lee’s grotesque yet beautiful surreal narratives—where two disparate realities or existences are arbitrarily juxtaposed or combined.

The genesis of his interest in the juxtaposition or connection between bodies and objects can be traced back to Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818, 1823). The depiction of the monster in Shelley’s novel, which was cited in one of the latest critiques of Lee’s work, is particularly intriguing.

"His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! … But these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion, and his straight black lips."

The narrative of Frankenstein presupposes an absolute dichotomy between objects/inanimacy and the human body/life, ultimately creating a creature—a monster—assembled from the bones of the dead, a being that is human yet not human. This monstrous tale echoes Lee’s paintings, which attempt to juxtapose or fuse "two unrelated realities," such as the non-human and human, or objects and bodies.

‘The Form’ series, which depicts broken tree stumps as if they were anatomical organs, and Constellation_2, in which luminous constellations are painted onto similar tree stumps, visualize the possibility of integration through methods such as numbering, alphabetizing, and sequencing symbols. Sky, Wind, and Stars (2023) presents a field where sun and moon overlap within clouds that ripple like ocean waves, glowing like stars.

The previously juxtaposed unrelated realities, positioned at symmetrical points within the canvas—top and bottom, left and right—are now shifting into a phase where they merge and connect. All orchestrated by Jaeseok Lee, the linker.

References

• 월간미술 (Monthly Art)