MATERIAL WITNESS: LEE JIN WOO & LEE SEUNG HEE
Curated by WATERFALL ART AND GALLERY
May 2025 through Sept 2025
KABR Headquarters, Englewood, New Jersey
For the Spring & Summer artwork rotation at KABR, Waterfall presents a meditation on materiality through the practices of two distinguished artists from Paris and China. Rooted deeply in the physical properties of their chosen mediums, ceramics and charcoal, their practices become gateways to realms that transcend the visible, offering glimpses into dimensions that lie beyond the boundaries of life and death.
Following its historically significant exhibition at the CAFA Museum in Beijing, China, produced and sponsored by the Waterfall Arts Foundation in 2024, this presentation expands upon Rituals of Repetition: Portals to Eternity, continuing a dialogue that navigates the liminal spaces between the spiritual and the material.
Lee Jin Woo, who lives and works in Paris, France since 1983, channels both physical and mental endurance into his process. He layers dense charcoal atop acrylic-coated linen and Hanji paper, only to laboriously grind it down. In this act of both destruction and revelation, form dissolves into abstraction, leaving behind a tactile, meditative depth that bears the memory of its making.
Lee Seung Hee, who lives and works between South Korea and China, redefines the traditional boundaries of ceramics and porcelain, transforming clay into conceptual forms that blur the line between sculpture and painting. Drawing inspiration from motifs of the Joseon Dynasty and modernism he manipulates paper-thin clay—bending, scratching, and shaping the surface—to explore the intentionality of each gesture and the subtle revelations that arise from within the material.
Together, these artists offer a profound experience—an invitation to pause, reflect, and discover new perspectives on impermanence, transformation, and the subtle threads that bind us to the world.
Lee jin woo (Paris, France b.1959)
Lee Jin Woo, born in 1959 in South Korea, graduated from Sejong University and moved to France in 1983, where he studied Plastic Arts and Art Materials Science at Paris 8 University and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Studying fine art he found charcoal and hanji paper as a medium to search and express his identity. Lee Jin Woo’s meticulous layering process, involving transparent layers of charcoal and hanji paper, forged a profound bond with repetition and transformation through laborious efforts and mental exhaustion.
lee seung hee (China, b.1958)
Lee Seung Hee was born in 1958 in Cheongju, the capital of North Chungcheong province, South Korea where he studied ceramics, fiber craft, dyeing, and tapestry prior to relocating to Jingdezhen, China in 2008. For the past 35 years of his artistic career, Lee has been at the revolutionary frontier in the contemporary ceramic art world. Lee has been consistently challenging the overall perspective on ceramic art, employing refined materials and leading to the innovation of contemporary ceramic paintings and installations from the traditional origins of porcelain art. Lee emphasizes motifs, materials, and colors that enable viewers to directly connect his undeniably contemporary works to the rich heritage of Asian Ceramics.