Lee Ju-ri explores conflicting desires in Visible or Invisible exhibition

Painter Lee Ju-ri’s solo exhibition Visible or Invisible is on view through October 25 at Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Seoul Branch, in Seoul’s Jongno district. Using the human body as its subject, the exhibition examines the boundary between existence and nonexistence and the opposing desires within people.

The exhibition focuses on two conflicting impulses: the desire to settle in one place and the desire to break away from it. Lee Ju-ri uses overlapping and distorted bodies to depict people caught between reason and instinct, perception and sensation.

Lee Ju-ri has combined realistic depictions of the body with unreal compositions to express emotions and the traces of life. In the new Visible or Invisible series presented here, multiple human figures intertwine and overlap. Arms, legs and torsos are rendered in detail, yet the boundaries between individual figures blur as their forms overlap.

Separate beings connect into what appears to be a single mass, making the familiar human body seem unfamiliar. Beyond their visible forms, the bodies serve as a means of expressing emotions and sensations that do not readily reveal themselves. Their entanglement also conveys the coexistence of a wish to erase life’s traces and a desire to leave them behind.

A graduate of the Department of Western Painting at Wonkwang University’s College of Fine Arts, Lee Ju-ri has held 25 solo exhibitions, including Afterimage (2023) and Different or Not Different (2021). The artist has also participated in curated, invitational and group exhibitions.

Lee Ju-ri was selected for Jeonbuk Young Artists 2015 at Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Seoul Branch, and received the 13th Jeonbuk Young Artist Award and the 15th Ha Jung-woong Young Artist Award. The artist’s works are held in collections including Seoul Museum of Art, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Art Bank and Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Seoul Branch.

Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Seoul Branch operates to introduce artists from the Jeonbuk region to audiences in Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area. Alongside exhibitions held through its venue rental program, it supports a program pairing artists with critics for critical feedback. It also plans to publish a catalogue documenting the year’s exhibitions.

Visible or Invisible is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. through October 25. The venue is closed on Mondays, and admission is free.

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