“I think what I’m doing with my painting is to open up the possibilities for the feelings to be free.”
- Keunmin Lee

Keunmin Lee paints uninhibitedly. His figurations slither, slide, and writhe from his paintbrush and onto the canvas with a nihilistic countenance looking to plot their nefarious liberation. They are betrayed, though, by their warm, nascent composition and embryonic posturing, radiate an earthly vulnerability. Keunmin has detained the wildly elusive and ephemeral demons of creativity into tarpaulin-like captivity, bringing them into leveled focus. Do I Wake or Do I Sleep? aligns Keunmin in direct confrontation with his manifested make and muse.

The installation, dotted with floor-stained paint smears and scattered brush canisters, emulates the aesthetic of the artist’s authentic workspace. Keunmin created most of his work around the corner at Shin Gallery’s project space, 66 Orchard, and transitioned his process within the gallery. Here, the exhibition constantly changes visually and metaphorically brining performing aspects to the exhibition. His work seems to pulsate and breathe, brazenly dominating the white walls with their colorful peculiarity. In this space, they have made themselves home.

The title is a paraphrase of John Keats’ final dictation in Ode to a Nightingale, which meditates on the enduring immortality of creative agency against the temporal body, romanticizing the tragic beauty of their incongruous convergence. This juxtaposition is keenly observed in Keunmin’s work. The figures are otherworldly, yet they retain a strange familiarity. Their presence, similar to Keats’ nightingale, reflects the inherent flaws of human nature, but Keunmin’s expressive renderings which are a testament to the impression that reconciles these flaws, becomes our strengths.

Keunmin Lee (b.1982) is originally from South Korea. Do I Wake or Do I Sleep? is his third exhibition in the United States. In 2007, He received his B.F.A. from Seoul National University. He has had solo and group exhibitions since 2003 in Seoul and exhibited in the U.S for the first time at Shin Gallery in 2014. In Seoul, Keunmin exhibited his works and select drawings in Eve Gallery and Hyun Gallery in 2010 and in Damn Gallery in 2011 and 2013. In 2015, he participated in the group exhibition All the Windows to the World at the Blume Museum of Contemporary Art in Paju, Korea.