Lee Myung mi subject matters are familiar objects and animals from her surroundings such as flowers, potted plants and animals. Instead of attaching meanings to each subject matter, she first captures the essence of the shape and uses intense primary colors to create a flat surface that defies perspective and gravity. Shapes, colors and bold touches on canvas are a kind of Game for her. “Texts” are also on canvas in a stream of consciousness, a free-for-all of sensible colors, media and text. Her visual and linguistic understanding of things crosses the boundary between the two, and raise questions on the narrative capacity and structural meaning of painting and language through her unique intellectual “Game.” A strange and sparkling condition is attached asking “Will this be a painting?” instead of “What is a painting?” emphasized by minimalist and monochrome artists. The two questions are about the nature of painting with starkly different attitudes. This is because the former is preceded by the act of conceiving, while the latter is always accompanied by the act of drawing.

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Born in Daegu, Korea, in 1950, Korean artist Lee Myung mi made herself known in 1974 through the Daegu Contemporary Art Festival, which served as a turning point in Korean contemporary art, as a founding member and youngest female artist. The festival was also a platform for experimental art to incubate video art and performance in Korea. Although she initially valued logical concepts in line with the trend of the times, she pursued expression with the desire of making real paintings. This was the beginning of ‘Game’. Painted for 50 years, ‘Game’ was the title of her first solo exhibition in 1977, and it has remained so for her shows and works.

‘Game’ is an underlying element of her works and her source of life. Lee Myung mi, a female artist in her 70s, is spreading a positive image of contemporary art with colorful and free-spirited painting style.