Haevan Lee

Buffer zone: Battle Ground Series

Buffer zone: Battle Ground Series

Battleground explores the psychological landscape of war, confronts anxiety by juxtaposing it with the beauty of nature, and leads to thinking about the delicate balance between chaos and tranquility.

A psychological buffer zone that desires peaceful neutrality despite the presence of chaos is revealed, and this is depicted as a materialized landscape where fact and abstraction are mixed.

Buffer zone: Battle Ground Series

Battle ground series

Battleground is ‘a space where hidden troubles protrude sharply’ and ‘a space filled with the energy of quiet explosion’. The geometric shapes of triangles and squares and artificial sculptures in the paintings are signs warning of land mines, warning signs at various military facilities, bunkers for war, and lines that should not be crossed.

Through the curved panoramic three-dimensional painting with objects, I try to turn the exhibition space itself into a buffer zone. Viewers encounter fictionalized characters and restriction signs in the landscapes exploring various boundaries between cultures, life and death, virtual and reality, human and nature. The painterly installation mesmerises upon entering the space. A large-scale panorama canvas sets the mood with scintillating colors, abstract areas as well as pictorial details and painterly gestures. A soundtrack with birds and a human storyteller emphasize the dreamy realm that the work allures to. Parts of the painting are horizontal and close to the floor, some of it is turned into furniture. A screen, tucked behind curvy lines inside the painting connects to the voice-over, and adds an extra layer of interpretation to the theme of the work - a ‘ welcome to the buffer zone’ collides with ‘the cosmic race’.

I try to turn the exhibition space itself into a buffer zone, going beyond capturing the scenery of a specific place. The Buffer Zone unfolds as a panorama that surrounds the given exhibition space. Unlike a landscape painting that assumes a single viewpoint, a panorama is created by linking multiple viewpoints. A panorama with multiple viewpoints does not pre-set the audience's position. The panorama opens up a space where multiple people can enter and see it differently, from different positions and viewpoints. The buffer zone looks like an untouched space, like a painting. In fact, it is also home to many creatures that grow with incredible power. Human figures are rare in such buffer zones, but human-made figures do occasionally appear. Like colorful and striking triangles and squares geometric shapes, the artificial marks in the space indicate the areas where people from different territories cannot enter, such as Military installations, minefields, or lines that cannot be crossed. When a human sees it, there is a sudden tension, but the animals that live there walk leisurely or fly across.

‘Border_less.site’ is a research/exhibition project with other artists, architects, researchers, and curators. This exhibition began with research into various fields, including sociology, cultural anthropology, and architecture history in the Sinuiju-Dandong area (border area between North Korea and China). And we went on a research trip in 2019 to the border, avoiding airspace and land of North Korea. I made objects and landscapes through a process of figuration in fiction. The subjective visual definition is embodied in the artwork as in “Pictionary” (a game in which players try to identify specific words or concepts from their teammates’ drawings), which poses questions to audiences during the exhibition. Recognizing the process of the exhibition as a type of Pictionary, I deal with ‘our gaze’ within the three main stages of ‘experiences and record through research’, ‘observation and exploration’ and ‘art making for the exhibition’. It recalls a time when I was busy observing the border area, ranging from looking at North Korea through a rental telescope for tourists on a ferry flying the Chinese flag on the Amnok River, to looking at Mt. Geumgang through a large military telescope at DMZ Observatory in South Korea. This is similar to the art-making process of observing nude models in the studio for croquis. It overlaps the days when I and other people shared thoughts on their drawings. What stories do the works from different perspectives in the exhibition hall have? Perhaps the object of observation disappears and only the object drawn on the paper is left.

DMZ Landscape Series turns restricted or photography-prohibited areas into paintings. I have painted the DMZ Landscape series since 2012. I had a special visit to an observatory in DMZ in 2018. A soldier showed the North DMZ on a monitor through a large telescope. There were dark geometric holes in the mountain which are bunkers from the North Korean military. Many of south Koreans can not imagine that there are holes, bunkers in the mountain which is symbolic of beautiful nature, unification. I painted based on my drawings. And I put abstract paintings that are split into small pieces on both sides. I tried to draw the experience and the blurry landscape that I saw through the monitor and telescope. Dark squares are embedded in the natural scenery. I see the most natural where nobody lives and the most political landscape. In other words, it brings the concreteness that rises from abstraction and its politics.

I made an object series of an artist's tool series while thinking about the act of observation and the creative process. An easel that has been my necessity for a long time since childhood. Throughout the centuries, painters have been sitting in front of an easel to observe and draw objects. Looking at the history of the easel, easels appear in paintings from ancient Rome to the 17th century. And easel has existed and functioned together in the process of observation and creation.

I capture and depict some landscapes in daily life and narratives of historical and political images from media. The paintings are framed with 오간색 (五間色/ colors between the five colors) . 오방색(五方色/The five colors) is based on the yin and yang, five elements of nature and oriental philosophy. The five colors are used as the primary colors, and colors between the five colors connect and represent all the natures of the world. So, the five colors symbolize the universe and humans. By framed with the colors, It aims to maintain peace and harmony in life through colors. On the way series was presented in Bangkok Art Biennale, 2020. At the time, peaceful protests and police crackdowns were taking place across Thailand. A protest took place right in front of the exhibition place. We, including artists Ai Weiwei, Anish Kapoor, and Ho Rui An, stated against violence in support of Thai democracy protesters. “...As artists, we thrive in a society that supports our ability to speak out and speak to the times in which we live. Such a society meets calls for progressive change not with a crackdown but a commitment to building understanding, dialogue and collectivity October 21, 2020 ”

The cosmic race is a portrait painting series that depicts imaginary characters about the relationship between humans and nature. I depict portraits of people who were born and raised in different countries and who work in the art scene. I combine characters and their favorite plants to create another race with a fictional essay about the cosmic race. Through this process, I try to express a relationship with nature that can be a kind of conquest, union, or symbiosis. This series of paintings were first exhibited in ‘DOPA+ project : The cosmic race’, was released along with my fictional text. Dopa+Project is a collaborative project which explores the sustainability of collectives across borders by collaborating with multinational artists, researchers and experts in various fields. Through the project, artists, an architect, a curator and critics from Korea and Mexico share their own interpretations of convergence and transformation of cultures, and various perspectives of “race”, “universality”, “exclusivity”, and “autonomy”. Also, The cosmic race painting images and story is transformed into digitalized images and video with voice, and added an extra layer of interpretation to the theme of the work - a ‘ welcome to the buffer zone’ collides with ‘the cosmic race’.

Painting-sculptures by superimposing the layers of landscapes that she experienced while staying at Peace Culture Bunker, an anti-tank defense shelter built after armed North Korean guerrillas invaded Seoul, South Korea in January 1968, and presented the works in the exhibition Goliaths, Tanks (2018, Seoul). ‘Goliaths, Tanks’ is an amalgamation of paintings and objects weaved together in site-specific installations and multi-media projections, accompanied by performance pieces. The movement in each object resonating with the sound of ticking clocks serenely draws out the muted anxiety underlying the division of the Korean peninsula following the war in the 1950s. The ensemble takes place at the Peace Culture Bunker at the Northern end of Seoul, which was originally built in the late 1960s as a barricade to cut off North Korean ground forces, and transformed into an art space. The works are embodied to the remnants and residues of the space into the entire exhibition, deliberately placing objects along the artillery halls looking out to grass yards where rusty old tanks sit as gravestones

The cut-out paintings were exhibited with the fictional text based on the artist's notes about the sound of a "thump" while working during the night in the studio that was an anti-tank protection facility. ‘Goliath, Tank’ came by maximizing the sensory experience of a specific place and the psychological experience of serenity and anxiety through landscape paintings, images of frame pieces, the sound of a pendulum, and the movement of objects.

DMZ Landscape Series turns restricted or photography-prohibited areas into paintings, These pieces are early paintings of the DMZ series. The DMZ is a border, also a “buffer zone” established to prevent military clashes, and nobody lives inside the zone. The Republic of Korea is located in East Asia politically and geographically and is a peninsula in the eastern part of the Eurasian continent geographically, and it is surrounded by seas on three sides, we are no different from living on an island. Since it is impossible to pass through North Korea, to go to Eurasia, you have to either avoid the North Korean sky by plane or take a boat. From DMZ Landscape Series (2012-current) to Crossing-exploring border projects in other countries, it comes into contact with various images, imagination, cultures, and stories. Starting from observations close to me, my movements and environments have opened up other possibilities for creation.