Education
1990
Studies of fine art at EWHA University, Seoul, Korea
1992
Studies of free art at the Art Academy
Münster, Academy for Fine Arts with Prof. Udo Scheel und Prof. Ulrich Erben
1997
Master class student academy certificate
1998
Award from DAAD
2002
Member of West German Artists’ Society WKB
2003
start, Sponsorship Award for Young Artists from the Cultural Foundation of the County Savings Bank Steinfurt, Steinfurt
Solo Exhibitions
2010
Atelier 2010 Seoul«, b2project-gallery, Seoul, Korea
2009
Quartier 7, Muenster (C)
2007
GLS Bank, Bochum, Germany 2006 one studio – two times painting«, Wohn+Stadtbau Muenster
2005
Gallery Januar, Bochum Art Association Ahaus, Germany 2
004
far far away, zweite_Zeit, Friends of Current Art Association, Muenster Cultural Foundation of the Westphalian Provincial Assurance, Muenster
2003
Society for Current Art Ruhrgebiet, Oberhausen, Germany
2002
Gallery Clasing, Muenster Black Landscape, schumannsraum, Munich (C)
1999
West Eastern Metamorphoses, Art Trade Michael Nolte, Muenster
1998
The Chamber, cuba, Muenster, Germany (C)
Group Exhibitions
2010
Landpartie(WKB), Museum Abbey Liesborn, Germany
Seoul Open Art Fair 2010, Seoul, Korea
2009
New Landscape, Educational Centre Thyssen, Duisburg, Meno Parkas Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania
2008
Gallery Kätelhöhn, Möhnesee, Germany
2006
Master Class Students Prof. Udo Scheel, Savings Bank Gelsenkirchen-Buer calculated and intuitional, Meno Parkas Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania and Grudziadz, Poland
2005
The Wages of Work (WKB), Art Museum Mühlheim
Yearly Offerings 2006, Westphalian Art Association Münster
2004
Landscape Paintings – Bochum Collects II, Museum Bochum
Here and Now, Gustav Lübke Museum, Hamm
Gallery S65, Cologne, Painting 04, Contemporary Positions on Painting
Art Gallery Recklinghausen Way Home, a project by culturalaffairs, Gallery Zink+Gegner, Munich
Gallery Martin Kudlek, Cologne
Painting 04, Barmenia Assurance, Wuppertal
2003
start – Sponsorship Award for Young Artists from the Cultural Foundation of the County Savings Bank Steinfurt, Steinfurt
2002
Overview (WKB), Museum Bochum, Bochum
2001
West German Artists’ Society in Lithuania, Kaunas, Lithuania
Small Sculptures & Objects, Image Series, Gallery Michael Schlieper,Hagen
2000
From Home to Home, West German Artists’ Society (WKB), Museums of Lüdenscheid, Municipal Gallery Lüdenscheid, Lüdenscheid
Asia-Europe Young Artists’ Painting Competition, Asia-Europe Foundation,
Seoul Arts Center, Seoul
Kyongju World Culture Expo, Kyongju, Na In Gallery, Kwangju, Korea and other locations
1999
Master Class Students in Westphalian Castles, Castle Opherdicke, Holzwickede
Light Incidence, Simultanhalle, Cologne
1998
Out of the Box, Academia del Bellas Artes, Madrid
1997
Udo Scheel and his Master Class Students, Law Firm Gleiss, Lutz, Hootz, Hirsch & Partner, quartier 206, Berlin
1995
Out of the Box, Royal Art Academy Stockholm, Sweden
Blackscapes
What hasn’t been ranted about the end of landscape art:
“There is no more landscape,” as Fernand Léger put it as early as 1925. Following the end of classic modernism, there were all sorts of things, such as abstract and informel, pop and op art, as well as our dear postmodern and deconstructionist processes, but no genuine debate about the classic representational topos of the landscape. Also the strong hype about figurative painting, in defiance of all concreteness, does not exactly confirm the good old veduta. Under these circumstances, it is all the more exciting when an artist of today dares to challenge anew the supposedly obsolete art genre—especially when she is born in Korea and is painting in the traditional European oil-on-canvas technique. Therefore, it is with good cause that Mi-Kyung Lee, who was born in Chung Ju in 1967 and studied at the academies in Seoul and Münster, calls her exhibition in the showroom of the Förderverein Aktuelle Kunst (Friends of Current Art Association) in Münster “Far, far away”. Her landscape paintings, though displaying various motives, still have one thing in common: they all are monochrome works in black and white, painted in generous albeit precisely calculated brush strokes, ever fluctuating on the fine line between concreteness and abstraction. Because the paintings do not claim that there are landscapes to be seen, at least not by crude pictorial illustration.
The picture emerges within the beholder—this truism from the perception theory is illustrated by Lee’s paintings as striking as nonchalant, because the association of the black, grey and white traces with floorage, groves and the vastness of water and heaven is suggested to the experienced eye by the open painting technique in the most subtle way. A colour line becomes a horizon and a fine grey glaze becomes a cloud formation—in the confrontation with the black paint matter, an imaginative space opens up. Lee’s acumen lies in this extremely reduced imagery: abdication of obtrusively explicit symbolism, emphasis on the material medium and restriction of the colouring to two basic qualities. This often appears serene and quiet, at times dramatic, mostly even compellingly meditative—still these works are not phantasmagorical image bubbles, but well-considered orchestrations, which with their structural composition and their strong visual settings reveal distinct aesthetics. By Mi-Kyung Lee exhausting the pictorial-intrinsic potential—the paintings rather emerge as accidental results of matter, not from the observation à la William Turner—they remain ultimately abstract, quasi timeless black-filtrated diffusions of the natural. Given Mi-Kyung Lee’s origin, one is automatically reminded of Asian ink drawings in a decidedly kalligraphic ductus. That the artist has emancipated herself fully from them is evident in her latest exhibition. Still one would like to know: what would Hokusai have said about it?
Christoph Zitzlaff
