Kyungtaek Lee

Kyungtaek Lee

Photographer Kyungtaek Lee is an artist who interprets the meaning of existence through 'unexpected encounters'. Through chance encounters with materials and scenes from the earth, he expands on the relationship between objects and humans and the meaning of human history, connecting them in a new perspective. No man's land is a series about man-made structures found on the border of modern civilization and uninhabitable land. Although we usually believe that man-made things disappear, the artist felt a sense of permanence when she saw human objects that were naturalized in the eternal earth, rather than disappearing. These structures were found by chance in the Himalayas and the Andes, some in the island regions of East Asia, and unexpected human traces in Russia and the Arctic Circle. Through the old man-made structures that remain alone, the artist speaks of the lonely interiority of our modern self with its more savage and unfinished self. However, the artist finds the paradox of how we eventually assimilate with our surroundings and become a 'part' of the landscape. The works are prepared as large-scale photographic works over 140 centimeters in size, which are self-printed by the artist after special emulsion treatment on printmaking paper rather than ordinary photo paper. The physicality of the work is very artistic, and you can see the combination of photographic reality and painterly materiality.