One summer night. The mischievous fairy Puck stumbles upon a
sleeping couple in the woods. He secretly drips pansy nectar into their eyes,
and when they awake, they fall in love under the influence of the spell. This
scene from Shakespeare’s classic play A Midsummer Night’s Dream
inspired artist Ahnlee Lee, who presents a new series of paintings alongside
recent works at ONE AND J. Gallery in Cheongdam, Seoul.
Seeds, leaves, flowers, fruits, light, birds… Ahnlee Lee
attentively observes the small presences surrounding him in daily life. He
translates his experiences and emotions—often arising from personal
interactions—onto canvas. Drawing influence from classical painting, Lee
explores the pure essence of his subjects and expresses them with sculptural
balance. Beyond painting, he incorporates gestures such as stitching, weaving,
and scraping to breathe life into delicate beings. Like Puck, who covertly
intervenes in complex human emotions, Lee hopes to spark new connections or
stories by playfully interjecting himself into relationships—an impulse he
expresses through drawing, painting, and collage. Whether tossing paint onto
the canvas or tracing disjointed lines to reflect uncontrollable dynamics in
relationships, Lee’s works reveal an innocent playfulness, as if he secretly
tucks something away for viewers to discover.
In particular, the solo exhibition 《Puck, Nocturnal Paintings》 features new
sand-textured works like Kiss (2024), Carnival
Confetti (2024), and Olive Trip (2024), which draw
special attention. With a background in sculpture, Lee has infused these
paintings with the materiality and symbolism of sand. Mixing acrylic and
various pigments with sand, he layers them onto the canvas, repeating a process
of painting, drying, and scraping. On a terrain of sand, dark anthraquinone
blue forms rock-like masses. Between these shapes, flowers and plants—symbols
of healing and connection—emit a quiet vitality, casting the night scene with a
mysterious energy. Rather than treating these surreal landscapes as mere
whimsical fantasies, the artist reflects deeply on the boundary between
intellect and emotion. Leaving behind subtle traces as metaphorical gateways to
spaces beyond, Lee reveals his own effort to stay anchored in reality through
these "nocturnal paintings."
