▲ Image of City, Cotton, linen, and wool thread on cotton cloth, 1961 ⓒ Lee Shin Ja, MMCA

'Thread Scapes', a solo exhibition by Lee Shin Ja, a first-generation textile craftsman in Korea, is being held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Lee is a first-generation textile craftsman representing modern Korean craftsmanship, who showed active work from the 1950s to the 2000s. Before the new form of textile art appeared in Korea, she marked a milestone in the Korean textile art world through her work activities that discovered various textile media and applied her expression techniques.

▲ Forest, Cotton, linen thread and wood, 1972 ⓒ Lee Shin Ja, MMCA

The artist used materials that can be easily found in everyday life, such as a flour bag, insect repellent net, wallpaper, and paper, and ordinary materials that fit the emotions of Koreans. She sublimated textile art into a new art domain through an understanding of the rich texture and potential of materials, appropriate expression techniques, and new formative experiments.

Tapestry, which Lee has devoted her life to, is the work of using threads on the canvas like a brush to create patterns on the surface only with the colors of the threads. Tapestry work is a process of confirmation and accumulation of time, and is sometimes compared to our repeated lives. Throughout his life, the artist created works that added his sensibility by weaving his inner memories and landscapes into tapestries.

▲ Memory, Wool thread, 112.5x117cm, 1985 ⓒ Lee Shin Ja, MMCA

This exhibition was designed to reflect on the artist's life and work over half a century. Lee's journey as an artist, educator, and woman provides a starting point for understanding current Korean crafts with the history and footsteps of Korean textile art intact.

Through this exhibition, visitors will be able to appreciate about 90 works, including tapestries, dyeing works, embroidery, and drawings, and see the artist's vivid and beautiful world of work, which has constantly explored the true life and how to express it.

The exhibition will be held until Feb. 18 at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province.

▲ Retrospection of Autumn, Wool, synthetic thread, 224x146cm, 1987 ⓒ Lee Shin Ja, MMCA

Sayart / Nao Yim, yimnao@naver.com