Introduction

“Painting with light” might be another way to summarize Lee Jeonglok’s artistic technique. He carefully places individual lights to dramatically illuminate a tree’s trunk and branches. Captured in multiple-long exposure shots, the images are overlapped to produce an extraordinary visual experience.

His “Tree of Life” is set before different landscapes. The tree glows against the blue evening sky, atmospheric and enchanting, and pulls the viewer magically under its spell. The artist is seeking to depict what is invisible, to open a new level of perception. It is conceptual photography with a metaphysical edge.

Jeonglok’s works stand out through the aesthetics of the light. It serves not as a source of illumination – a functional means to show the surroundings – but as an element with an almost sculptural quality. It also brings the tree out from the material world, lending it a spiritual character. The beauty of the unreal manifests itself in the image. We pause, for a moment, and our minds drift to the possibility of another dimension.

Daniela Kummle

Bio

Lee Jeonglok was born in South Korea in 1971. He studied Art in his hometown of Gwangu, and then Art Photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. His works are known for their unique use of light, and combine both creative lighting techniques and layered long exposures. Over the last two decades, Jeonglok’s works have been shown in countless solo and group exhibitions, including at the Gwangu Biennial and in the Museum of Photography in Seoul.