Working with techniques rooted in traditional Korean painting, LEE Eunsil (b. 1983) visually articulates situations that that arise at the point where personal desire collides with social norms. Her practice attends to instinctual drives and impulses that are suppressed or obscured within contemporary society, translating the psychological conflicts that emerge from them into a metaphorical language of painting. Whereas her early compositions depicted the psychological conflicts of individuals resisting traditional customs and social norms by projecting them onto the architectural framework of the hanok and the figures of anonymous animals, the recent paintings after the 2020s gradually strips away external factors to focus on subject’s psychological statue and emotional currents, translated into abstract scenes. LEE summons onto the pictorial plane emotions that are intrinsic to contemporary human existence yet remain tacitly taboo within social structures, along with narratives long excluded from dominant discourse. By foregrounding stories buried in the intimate strata of personal memory, her paintings attempt to resonate with a more universal realm.

 

LEE was born in 1983 and received her BFA in Korean Painting from Seoul National University in 2006, followed by an MFA from the same institution in 2014. She has held solo exhibitions at various institutions including ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL (Seoul, Korea, 2025), No.9 Cork Street (London, UK, 2024), P21 (Seoul, Korea, 2021), U-jung Art Space (Seoul, Korea, 2019), Doosan Gallery (New York, US, 2016), Room 1003, Changgang Building (Seoul, Korea, 2013), Project Space Sarubia (Seoul, Korea, 2010), and Alternative Space Pool (Seoul, Korea, 2009). Her work has been presented in group exhibitions at Daegu Museum of Art (Daegu, Korea, 2026), König Telegrammfonamt (Berlin, Germany, 2025), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, Korea, 2024; Gwacheon, Korea, 2008), Gyeonggi Museum of Art (Ansan, Korea, 2024; 2008), Ilmin Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2022), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2022; 2021), Kumho Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2016), Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea, 2014), and the American University Museum (Washington, D.C., US, 2016), among others. She has participated in major domestic and international residency programs, including MMCA Changdong Residency, SeMA Nanji Residency, Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Incheon Art Platform, Songeun Art Cube Studio, the Doosan Residency New York, and Ssamzie Space Studio. LEE was selected as a participating artist in major exhibitions such as The 29th Joongang Fine Arts Prize (2007), Young Korean Artists 2008 at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (2008), and ARTSPECTRUM 2014 at Leeum Museum of Art (2014). In 2019, she received the Excellence Award at The 19th SONGEUN Art Award, drawing significant attention. Her works are included in the collections of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Korea), the Seoul Museum of Art (Korea), Songeun (Korea), and the ARARIO Collection (Korea).