TaeDong Lee

Taedong Lee (Korean, born 28th October, 1989)works with the motifs of memory and emotions related to the landscape, which was either visited, seen in a picture, or media. Lee transforms classical scenes of nature with distorted shape of the landscape through a combination of impasto and thin layers of paint, and vivid colours. Born and raised in Seoul South Korea, he is currently based in Seoul, has lived in the Philippines, London in his youth. While studying painting at Camberwell College of Arts and Gacheon university College of Arts, he developed and experimented his approach. More than just a process of transferring what has been observed - elements or memories are amplified on the canvas, creating narrative, subjective imagery - unlike pure documentary which is bound by objective outcomes. Colour harmony and technique is also crucial, as it provides an opportunity for Lee to express his own fundamental feelings. The nature of painting, is essentially image-making, and this can go beyond one point in time, one space. Present experience can be overlayed with memories, muddled and reformulated, and recaptured together. Lee calls it “an archive of memories and emotions”. Eventually, the painted space is reconstructed into a "phantom place" that has a unique emotional reality that differs from linear or more sober moments.