Gallery Hyundai hosts Jin Han Lee’s first solo exhibition, Lucid Dreams, from November 6 to December 22, 2024. The exhibition traces the artist’s 15-year journey, starting with her early career in London in 2007 to her return to Korea. Featuring 25 key works, the exhibition highlights Lee’s ability to navigate the abstract and figurative while delving into deeply personal and universal human experiences.

Lee’s paintings transcend traditional artistic language, exploring themes of estrangement, love, and intimacy through her signature motifs such as feet, the sun and moon, and elements of nature. Her dynamic brushstrokes move fluidly across the canvas, creating dreamlike narratives that invite viewers to engage with emotions and sensations beyond verbal articulation.

The exhibition’s title, Lucid Dreams, reflects the surreal quality of her works, which deconstruct and reconstruct symbolic language into narratives that challenge conventional understanding. By inhabiting the space between individual experience and collective memory, Lee offers an inclusive vision of art as a medium of universal resonance.

One of the exhibition’s highlights, The Judge and the Cellist (2024), blends multiple motifs from Lee’s past works, symbolizing her evolving identity as an artist. The painting portrays Lee as a performer under the spotlight, embodying her creative process while grappling with self-reflection and artistic judgment. Tools such as brushes, books, and her likeness are interwoven to create a deeply introspective narrative.

Other notable works include Shower Thoughts (2014) and its reinterpretation Shower Thoughts (Purple) (2024), which explore the fleeting, context-free musings that arise during moments of solitude. Inspired by the concept of “Shower Thoughts” on Reddit, these paintings embody the free-flowing nature of thought and its transformation over a decade.

Lee’s experimentation with virtual reality during a 2021 residency pushed her to question the essence of painting. This led to innovative works such as 8 (2021), where brushstrokes appear to extend outward into three-dimensional space, creating a new dynamic between viewer and canvas.

The exhibition also features Lee’s earlier works, including Super Mario Without the Landscape (2011), which reinterprets traditional Western painting techniques. By blending abstract forms with modern cultural references, the piece challenges conventional perspectives and reimagines the language of painting.

Throughout the exhibition, Lee’s recurring motifs—such as feet—shift from intimate representations of personal memory to broader explorations of universal themes like connection and love. Works like Two People with Blossoms and Buds (2024) juxtapose the warmth of human touch with vibrant natural imagery, drawing parallels between emotional bonds and the vitality of nature.

Lucid Dreams encapsulates Jin Han Lee’s relentless pursuit of the boundaries between reality and imagination. By transforming personal narratives into visual symphonies, the artist invites viewers to explore the untranslatable moments that only painting can convey, offering a profound reflection on the interconnectedness of human experience.

Sayart / Nao Yim, yimnao@naver.com