TAEDONG LEE - EMERALD ISLAND

Taedong Lee works with emblematic identifiers and personal intimate memories connected to landscape. The landscape, in itself, is a Homosapien habitat with a material existence.  Aside from this, it can also be an imaginative place, conceptual and evocative of mood; triumph and decline. Its physical existence is a constant, in which, continual change or advancements happen. These changes or transitions, connect the landscape to time, whether it be human duration or mother nature. Landscape can be a wild, untouched valley, or man-made space that has been carefully curated. Irrespective, the landscape provides points or locations that can be visited, and allows each of us to relate in an affective way - from the mundane to the otherworldly.

 An important aspect of the material landscape, is the response of the five senses; sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Lee explains this symbiotic relationship “If I was to characterize my experience of being in a forest, where the grasses are dense, the trees are covered with snow and the lakes are as far as the eye can see. My immediate response is that of a visual one, sight. Then, that of smell and touch, the temperature, the humidity of the forest, the feel of the branch strewn earth beneath my feet. These experiences work in partnership and amplify emotions and memories.” Lee's work begins with recalling and recording information through writing or painting.

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.