본문
The Trace of inevitability out of
coincidence, infinite possibility out of limitations
Artist Sang Yong Lee is a rare artist who
is familiar with all genres of art including painting, sculpture, installation
and photography. He does not rely on
emotions or impulsive feelings. He
focuses on detailed meaning of the storytelling. His interests lie in history, folk studies,
anthropology, sociology, classic physics, Eastern philosophy and among
others. He is well versed in different
scriptures. What an artist wants to know
is ultimately not what art is. An artist wants to find out who we are, where we
are from and where we are going. In
other words, artist’s interest is about us, the human beings. He wants to talk about our space, our time
and our free will, volition that has made a certain decision, a narration made
of fourth dimensional fate that is never ending. The difference is it is not made of words but
with vision and texture.
People who know the artist Sang Yong Lee
agree on one thing. That he is an artist
who engraves on inkstone. Inkstone is
one of the ‘Four Precious Things of the Study (Munbangsawoo) ’ according to
Confucianism and it has a slightly different nuance from the Western pen. The very first civilization drew and painted. In the beginning they could not distinguish
between reality and imagination. In
order to criticize the magical world, the letters have been invented. The letters developed from practical
reasoning. And thus, the outlook on the
world of science was formed from technological modern times. But the East used Chinese characters and
Chinese characters have used pictures and letters as a system of unitary
characters. Be sure to note that Chinese
characters’ starting point was a dot that developed into a full character. Therefore, it did not emphasize the
importance of positivism that signified practical reasoning as a way to connect
with nature’s causal relationship. Rather,
it admired the constancy of the harmony between all creations and we exist to
belong to creations and this was something that we followed as a principle to
live in this world. Harmony is a matter of
courtesy and courtesy is an expression of inner working. Therefore, art to us is an outer courtesy
with exposure of devotion of beauty of inner working. Art to us is an exposure of devotion that is
not in the least strayed from the inner self.
Contrary to this, Western’s pen has an
engraving character. Engraving not only
has a meaning of recording but also gives individuality to the person. The origin of pen is from a Latin word stilus.
From stilus came style. Western’s engraving culture resembles its
history of moving away from generality of creation, thus, wholeness to
individual character. Western art was a
history of gods to nature, nature to human beings, human beings to
concepts. Through this process of
history, fighting and constant repetitions of reconciliations have taken
place. While working in the U.S. Artist
Sang Yong Lee realized this difference of cultures of the West and the East and
he worked on to bringing harmony to these two different cultures. This unfolding is the backdrop of how he engraved
mountains and moons to the inkstone. The
inkstone contains the important factor of eastern culture and engraving
represents historical western culture.
There is a more deeper meaning to Artist
Sang Yong Lee engraving sun, moon (ilwolsungshin),
river and mountain (kangsanchunha),
to his inkstones. Ilwolsungshin refers to time and kangsanchunha refers to the whole space. The principal agent that engraves the two is
the labor by the artist and the history of human beings. Artist Lee’s work represents wholeness from
the scene of our lives. Arising takes
place from the coincidence through the net of wholeness. This may be a coincidence but life can be
inevitable.
Artist Lee engraves on an inkstone someone has used
in the past. This engraving may be owned
by someone else in the future. The
inkstone was produced by someone who dug stone in the mountains and was used by
different scholars in the past and after a very long time it was discovered by
the artist. The stories of time and
space have been engraved and become an artwork and ultimately it becomes a
conversation to someone. That is the
core behind Artist Lee’s title ‘Fate.’
All of our fate is coincidental but an act of drama if you look at it
carefully. Artist Lee’s ‘Fate’ series is
an artwork refined with humble and well-mannered poise. A person who has looked deeply into life’s
meaning will appreciate life’s meticulous and profound meaning. And an artist’s artwork tells a story of
wisdom that is based on his life-long experience which may seem refined and
humble at times. It may seem like
someone else’s story but at the end it is a story of our own.