Gallery Naeil in Jongno-gu, Seoul, will host artist Lee Jung-ah's solo exhibition, "Palimpsest of Multiple Perceptions," from the 24th of this month to August 5th.

Artist Lee Jung-ah has consistently offered viewers new perceptual experiences through her unique body of work that traverses the boundaries between metal, light, and painting.

Expanding upon the traditional concepts of two-dimensional painting, the artist utilizes metal plates as her primary medium rather than canvas. She repeatedly leaves numerous traces on the metal surfaces through grinding and sanding, layering transparent resin over them time and time again.

In this process, "light" becomes the core material of the work, creating different images and spatial perceptions depending on the viewer's position and the time of day. The shimmering silver lines within the works evoke images of reeds in the wind while simultaneously displaying ever-changing expressions through the material properties of metal and the reflection of light.

As viewers move in front of the artwork, they experience new colors, depths, and spatial dimensions, encountering a landscape that is not a single fixed image, but one that is generated through time.

The exhibition opening ceremony will be held on Friday the 24th at 5 PM, and an "Artist Talk" will take place on Thursday the 30th at 3 PM. The Artist Talk, in particular, will be a special occasion to hear directly from the artist about the stories behind her work, her creative process, and the moments of inspiration she experienced during creation.

[Critique] Palimpsest of Multiple Perceptions

Seo Gil-heon (Ph.D. in Plastic Arts, Visiting Professor at Mokwon University)

In the work of artist Lee Jung-ah, who has continuously explored the nature of flatness, the canvas does not remain a mere indirect support hidden beneath the picture plane. Instead, it functions as an active element that takes on the responsibility of direct expression. The metal plates, which are carefully scratched or ground down to serve as canvases, are both passive supports and the foundation for actively composing the surface as they engage with light to cultivate perception.

The sharp, lustrous effects produced by scratches and streaks left on the copper plate surfaces by grinders and sanders transform the canvas into a unique medium of expression that reveals optical characteristics. These qualities are realized by extending the realm of expression, as the marks and interstitial spaces created on the metal plane reflect and transform light according to the angle of the viewer's gaze, turning the surface into a vividly moving space.

Here, the surface of the canvas serves as a domain that draws light in as an active element of perception, functioning simultaneously as a physical reality and a potential space of multiplicity. The primary characteristic of Lee's work lies in the emergent tension between visibility and concealment, as well as between instinctive perception and intentional composition. Each piece becomes a potential space—a site of genesis where relationships between chance and memory, traces and erasures, and appearances and disappearances occur.

The wrinkled surfaces of the works, where these effects unfold, are inscribed with the memories of time. This signifies a "palimpsest"—much like the clay tablets, papyrus, or parchment used in ancient Egypt and elsewhere, where previous writings were erased to make room for new text—denoting a multiple-layered surface space where traces or the past remain potentially underneath.

Her work explores perceptual effects by applying the physical phenomena resulting from light reflecting off wrinkles etched into metal surfaces, or by inducing shifts in sensation through color pointillism. Consequently, her works, which manifest as sensitive and variable images that stir both the senses and the mind, are composed around the "potentiality of multiple perceptions" through which visual phenomena are perceived, felt, and interpreted.