Lee Hee-don, an artist who weaves numerous ‘ties’ encountered in human life into threads and creates them as a result of ascetic practice with color and form. Looking at his work, it reminds me of ‘The Man Who Planted a Thousand Trees’ by poet Nohae Park. There is a man who has been planting trees in an empty wasteland for 30 years. The man said, “On the barren slope, half did not sprout, and half withered and died, of which 1,000 trees survived.”

Lee Hee-don's relationship is a work that weaves 73 years and 639,918 hours of life on canvas. It is a work that allows you to meditate on relationships through paints piled up by weaving straight and neat threads.

Lee Hee-don, an artist who weaves numerous ‘ties’ encountered in human life into threads and creates them as a result of ascetic practice with color and form. Looking at his work, it reminds me of ‘The Man Who Planted a Thousand Trees’ by poet Nohae Park. There is a man who has been planting trees in an empty wasteland for 30 years. The man said, “On the barren slope, half did not sprout, and half withered and died, of which 1,000 trees survived.”

Lee Hee-don's relationship is a work that weaves 73 years and 639,918 hours of life on canvas. It is a work that allows you to meditate on relationships through paints piled up by weaving straight and neat threads.

Lee Hee-don, an artist who weaves numerous ‘ties’ encountered in human life into threads and creates them as a result of ascetic practice with color and form. Looking at his work, it reminds me of ‘The Man Who Planted a Thousand Trees’ by poet Nohae Park. There is a man who has been planting trees in an empty wasteland for 30 years. The man said, “On the barren slope, half did not sprout, and half withered and died, of which 1,000 trees survived.”

Lee Hee-don's relationship is a work that weaves 73 years and 639,918 hours of life on canvas. It is a work that allows you to meditate on relationships through paints piled up by weaving straight and neat threads.

Lee Hee-don, an artist who weaves numerous ‘ties’ encountered in human life into threads and creates them as a result of ascetic practice with color and form. Looking at his work, it reminds me of ‘The Man Who Planted a Thousand Trees’ by poet Nohae Park. There is a man who has been planting trees in an empty wasteland for 30 years. The man said, “On the barren slope, half did not sprout, and half withered and died, of which 1,000 trees survived.”

Lee Hee-don's relationship is a work that weaves 73 years and 639,918 hours of life on canvas. It is a work that allows you to meditate on relationships through paints piled up by weaving straight and neat threads.

Lee Hee-don, an artist who weaves numerous ‘ties’ encountered in human life into threads and creates them as a result of ascetic practice with color and form. Looking at his work, it reminds me of ‘The Man Who Planted a Thousand Trees’ by poet Nohae Park. There is a man who has been planting trees in an empty wasteland for 30 years. The man said, “On the barren slope, half did not sprout, and half withered and died, of which 1,000 trees survived.”

Lee Hee-don's relationship is a work that weaves 73 years and 639,918 hours of life on canvas. It is a work that allows you to meditate on relationships through paints piled up by weaving straight and neat threads.

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」

Lee Hee-don's new roll series online for the first time. The artist's later work is It is a role series work that tells the story of the joys and sorrows of a hard life by spreading it on a mat and "rolling" it up.

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」

Dak, the paper mulberry. harmonizing colors and shapes

• Lee, Hee-don “match”

Mark Rothko, an abstract painter, pursued a complete abstract painting by eliminating all reproduced points on vague and unclear borderline canvas and thus aroused a wave of various emotions from despair to joy. This emotion can be interpreted as sublimity and sadness. “I am not an abstract painter. I simply try to express a man’s basic emotions”, he said.

Lee, Hee-don, despite sharing a common character as an abstract painter, works on a different perspective and a form from the aforementioned. Instead of expressing a basic emotion or idea that is ‘from where and for what we live for’, the painter sets a conceptual idea of ‘match’ as his art theme. Enduring and fighting back his painful path cataloged with intense work and continuous hardships molded him to a post-monochromatic today. His works indicate an influence by great abstract painters Chung, Chang-seop and Cho, Yong-ik.

The painter seeks constant communications with the world through his works ‘match’ series reflecting his past. Well around two thousands of his works painted in vertical and horizontal grids prove the point. He associates himself with the endless ‘match’ encountered everyday and tries to share his messages in a form of colors and shapes. And yet, his working methods are never easy nor simple.

The painter invented a punching method, which is to make small holes on canvas, and used it as his unique language. By adding a grinded paper mulberry on a surface of canvas that requires a troublesome process, the painter created three-dimensional images. Such persistence resulted in obtaining an invention patent on the material. A combination of paper mulberry fiber and paint creates the originality to his marvelous works.

Accumulating and crossing the materials to form shapes and adding colors in between allows a visual-effect depicting a strong vitality. This is a clear way to deliver a natural message from the painter, ‘match’. The expressing method or colors of ‘match’ can be reminded by other paintings or painters and yet, how it is presented and made is original.

The painter once stated there were no other ways to express ‘match’ with conventional methods or paints. Colors mixed with paper mulberry fibers and well organized shapes of grid on canvas with his own hands embody the painter’s art and are reckoned as his brand and signature.

His hidden philosophical intent conveying his aesthetic definition as a Korean with a mixture of abstract art lies there. It is also a refinding of the flatness in abstract painting by Lee, Hee-don, a character of a solitary disciplinant. Though it shows three-dimensional forms, the painter’s early works started from removing images. And his returning to flatness is based on uniformity of canvas. It used to be the sole and long-lasting method of the painter to create flat structure on a canvas using various colors and surfaces. However, he tries changes to winds, rhythms, and shapes of the flatness. These changes are shown in dynamic formations: pushing back as if breathing against the giant canvas, paralleling two or three components, or juxtaposing colors. It is a technique to let viewers feel their breath in a still and tranquil view.

The painter’s pursuit of original patterns to be organic and interactive on the surface enables the experience. And now, the painter is revealing his intention to break free from the flatness and structure. His recent pushing and rolling methods and magnifying subjects sighted noticeably are most throbbing challenges to predict his original perspectives.

Diagonal and deviated lines, oval-shaped geometric formations, and combination of splitted shapes and colors are new achievements showing the latter period of Lee, Hee-don’s paintings. A bold line laid in the center, three lines, so called three brothers, laid one after another offer visual pleasure. The formations might be seen as a simple change from a perspective of formative arts. However, it is fresh enough from a perspective of change. Using various colors; blue, red, yellow, green, pink, and so on, represents hope for ‘match’ visually.

“Korean monochromatic painting is an ‘art of mind” said Yoon, Jin-seop, an art critic. Lee, Hee-don paints the mind to explore ‘match’ on canvas. The painter has already approached the nature of painting and obtained universality. Associating the vitality of paper mulberry ‘DAK’ with connection with the others ‘match’ is clearly an act of art. For the reason, the painter’s work to repeatedly paint and form shapes on canvas is compared to a ‘silent performance’.

“A work is not a result of a random process on the surface of paper. It is a process of absorbing my breath, spirit, and endeavors into a paper that's been mixed and pounded by hands” said the late Chung, Chang-seop. Lee, Hee-don’s works that realizes ‘match’ is no difference.

For Lee Hee-don, his works would be completed when tranquil silence and intense colors come together with his original DAK. Stories of ‘match’ crossed and shaped into grids are spoken in the least language increases our expectations. The painter, unleashed from conventional monochromatic paintings, is now forming his own creative art. This is witnessed in the pushing methods, relieving expressions, audacious forms and use of colors and now expressing ‘match’ between mind, nature, and a man.

Contemplating his vast works in his studio, a dance of his colors and shapes ruminates on the past ‘match’. Each color and shape are a man’s life and collectively a wave of lives. Lee, Hee-don’s accomplishments and completion to visualize ‘match’ will reach a pinnacle riding this wave and transcending the flatness behind.

Kim Chong Geun / Art Critic

Lee Hee-don, an artist who weaves numerous ‘ties’ encountered in human life into threads and creates them as a result of ascetic practice with color and form. Looking at his work, it reminds me of ‘The Man Who Planted a Thousand Trees’ by poet Nohae Park. There is a man who has been planting trees in an empty wasteland for 30 years. The man said, “On the barren slope, half did not sprout, and half withered and died, of which 1,000 trees survived.”

Lee Hee-don's relationship is a work that weaves 73 years and 639,918 hours of life on canvas. It is a work that allows you to meditate on relationships through paints piled up by weaving straight and neat threads.

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」

Lee Hee-don's new roll series online for the first time. The artist's later work is It is a role series work that tells the story of the joys and sorrows of a hard life by spreading it on a mat and "rolling" it up.

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」

Lee Hee-don, an artist who weaves numerous ‘ties’ encountered in human life into threads and creates them as a result of ascetic practice with color and form. Looking at his work, it reminds me of ‘The Man Who Planted a Thousand Trees’ by poet Nohae Park. There is a man who has been planting trees in an empty wasteland for 30 years. The man said, “On the barren slope, half did not sprout, and half withered and died, of which 1,000 trees survived.”

Lee Hee-don's relationship is a work that weaves 73 years and 639,918 hours of life on canvas. It is a work that allows you to meditate on relationships through paints piled up by weaving straight and neat threads.

My work started from self-exploration and expanded to the people around me and the relationship with them. When I look back on the road I have passed at the time of my passing, it seems that the relationship with the people I came and went like this drove me and gave me a direction for my work.
Isn't the most important thing in our life is our relationship with people? My work is a reflection on my own life and an observation that examines the layers of human life. Inside the screen, the paint spreads vertically and horizontally to form layers,
On top of that, grains form and create a new story. Layers of paint piled up as if everyone lives in a different harmony as if they are alike create a new harmony.

Lee Hee-don 「Artist's Note」