[critic]Introduction to Exhibition
Introduction to Exhibition
Choi Jung Sun Art Historian
The believers say there is a guardian angel to everybody as if nature shows a different color to each one of us. It is the Archangel Raphael who began to accompany artist Heang-Gyun Lee ever since he converted to Christianity. In the Bible Raphael started the long journey with Tobias, protecting and guiding him and became the messenger of healing for him. The exhibition is an occasion that the Archangel Raphael and Heang-Gyun lee prepared for those who are tired and hurt in our everyday life. Sculpture performance, which is rarely done by artists, is an act of separating the artist and the spectators from the secular affairs and purifying them. It is a kind of a religious ceremony to consecrate his work he took pains to make to God. To Heang-Gyun Lee, who for the art of sculpture, worked willingly as a labor in the stone factory and foundry, the workshop is the sacred workplace God had given to man as well as he earned his livelihood where he began and finish a day full fo faith. When he cuts and carves rough stones, he adds the touch of his heart to nature that God has given so that he proposes the meeting of man and art. It is a meeting of stones with different grains and colors, as well as of soft marvel and cold bronze. The meeting of heterogeneous materials in his works does not nook unfamiliar probably because of his technical skills and hard work. But it also show the work of his heart and disposition. In order to add goodness to the human heart, he weaves in his work the family and religion into one. So he expects that the stones could present good heart to people and become something for them to approach anytime easily, comfortably, and gently. The exhibition show the story of love he hopes and wishes to achieve within the faith he chose.
Faith
Jesus in agony with the crown of thorns abandoned all his anguish and lay down. The artist, whose meeting with Catholicism has become a turning point, does not let us dream resurrection just with the represented figure of Jesus on the cross. Through the light glimmering under the figure of Jesus, he is converting the shadow of death into life energy. At the moment when life and death intersect with each other, we behold with our own eyes the nature of Jesus who has both humanity and divinity. If one wants something with a sincere heart, the hand gives birth to earnestness. The hands of the husband and wife praying with their skin visible must have come from earnestness. Heang-Gyun Lee finished the earnestness in the work The Holy Family with the marks of chisel and time engraved one ny one on the stone. And the earnestness continues to the Road to Golgotha. In the figures with serene and gentle smile, the artist gave expression to the spirit of martyrdom that was kept by paying for the life. The hands of saints quietly tell us of all these facts that were derived from the light of the heaven.
Hope
Raphael is the baptismal name of Heang-gyun Lee. The artist newlyborn into a Catholic hopes to be an angel. He is a father who took time to carve the stone to make a toy horse for his son. but he is also a cherub who is struggling to fulfil the calling of the archangel without knowing the toil. Sometimes the angel dreams the hope upon the marble stone soft as cushion, with the high pedestal of many years. Also, the female for him is a lovely being who most sensitively responds to the artistic sensibility like the angel who has become the religious self-portrait of the artist. By effectively giving vivid life to the texture and color of divergent stones, the girl and woman in the subdued aurora pink carry the aesthetics of harmony. And the woman with the hair wavering in the breeze has become his old lover who arouses the sensibility of art nouveau, yet at the same time, makes him sing the lyrical love song inadvertently.
Love
The chaste Mary replied to the good news the Archangel Gabriel announced. As if the bee loves the flower, she was born to be he mother with her love for humanity. We do not need a lengthy explanation for the love of the mother and son, lovers, and family who look at one place or gaze at each other sharing their thought. In the works of Heang-Gyun Lee, we see homely love with no superfluity. It originated from the simplified line and shapes that his sculpture purses, and at the same time is the result of sculptural effort trying to be faithful to the nature of stone. The exhibition is the first one showing the rebirth of the work with the help of religious sensibility of Heang-Gyun Lee, the artist who fell in love with the stone