LEE SEOUNG- KU (l963 02-05 Hong 1k University Print Making Adjunct professor(korea) 09-present : professor of yanbian University (china )An Image of Archaeological RhizomeLee Seoung Kus Recent Work: From NatureIt has been over a decade that Lee Seoung Ku has beenworking on his From Nature series of etching,acquaint, and drypoint work, in order to establish anunifying base on which nature and humanity become one.His series began in early the 1990s with the images ofhuman body, and moved to large circular voluminousmasses. From 1996 to the 2000s, he tried to create astriking contrast of light and dark, and dynamicstructures. Recently his screen gradually becamealmost black all over. Basic circular structures werehinted by the visible traces of light and dark shadingof dots, or margins between them. He often ordered thesections of visual masses with vertical, horizontaland curved lines. Meanwhile, his work was movingtowards an analogy of traditional Korean styles. Currently, his work, shown in his 9th solo exhibition,held at the Joseon Daily Newspaper Art Museum inSeoul, clearly indicated different issues which are acontinuation of his experimental trajectory, and whichwill be freshly explored in the 2000s. This was, Ithought, the highlight of this exhibition. His recent work can be described as an image ofarchaeological rhizome, which is the title of thisessay. In other words, these terms are the base on, orroot from, which Lee Seong Ku has generated hisimages. This indicates that the artist wants toestablish his vision of the world in a deeper realm,not on the surface of the natural world or in mentalimages. Until now, the artist termed such a profoundrealm as Nature. However, there is a strong needto articulate this more explicitly, in terms of thearchaeological rhizome. The rhizome is anoriginally botanical term, referring to a root likemutated subterranean stem, shooting out sub-branchesunder the ground that produce small roots. The stemsof Bamboo and lotus are the typical examples of this.Rhizome, here, in Lee Seong Kus work, means thatthe artist wishes his images to be, not like the upperbranches of the plant above the soil, but like thelower branches beneath the soil, shooting out manysmall roots, in order to connect with the one originalsource. In this respect, his work can be described asarchaeological, meaning that it searches for theorigin. The artist who wishes his work to be anarchaeological rhizome should view the inner natureof Nature and traditional Korean notion of naturalnessas being the same. According to the artists ownterms: I humbly tried to recover traditional Koreancharacteristics through connecting my study of acondensed expression containing thoughts on the originof myriad things in the natural world and on the innernature of Nature, to commonplace forms and colours.(From the artists note)The quotation above suggests that the artistunderstood rhizome as the original quality ofnaturalness that we can find in Korean naturalenvironment and traditional styles, and at the sametime, as the power that transcends space and time.From this point, we notice another approach in his newworking methods. Until now, the artist has tried toconnect the mental images to the rhizome, which isviewed as the original source of naturalness. He triedto find the connecting point of the mental images andthe rhizome in re-interpreting absorbing and smudgingeffects of ink. Absorbing and smudging effects of ink are the naturalitself. If I tried to generate the expressivesubstance of the mental images, composed within thetime and spatial limitations, through the variationsof these effects, this will be a natural beauty, andstronger than any artificial results. (Quoted andparaphrased by the author)In his own interpretation of absorbing and smudgingeffects of ink, he has explored every possible anddistinctive approach and method, available in thefield of painting and print-making, in order to inventhis own unique method. As for painting, he first,applied colour, made from natural pigment on to hanjior Korean paper, then, by using print-makingtechniques, printed small Buddha images, and finishedthe surface with soybean juice coating. Apart from the images of the Buddha, he employed theimages of traditional Korean roofs, roof tiles, tombstatutory, skirts and kites, all of which arerecognised as the icons of Korean cultural heritages.When he employed these as motifs, he applied kaolin onthe surface of Korean paper, then drew the images ofhis motifs, and finished the surface with a coat. In print-making, he used his earlier circular massesas the basic forms in his work of etching, acquaint,and drypoint, which are his original professionalarea. He introduced backgrounds between them, and … Read More