While on a round of errands in the city yesterday I made a point of going to the Korean Cultural Office on Elizabeth Street. Earlier I had read John McDonald’s review of an exhibit there, and I regard Honest John as a very reliable cicerone in matters of art. In addition, I have happy memories of the semester I spent at Korea University in Seoul. Finallly, I had walked by the KCO office a time ago on the way to meet some comrades for lunch at the Greek Club nearby. The conjunction of these stars led my steps, along with Google Maps, to the exhibition of Lee Lee Nam’s digital art.
While John’s review whet my appetite, it did not quite prepare me for the reality. In a surprising large space, darkened, I was alone with the works projected on Ultra High Definition screens; thank you, Samsung. Lee Lee Nam has taken traditional Korean, and a couple of European, images and recast them as video.
The result is delightful, captivating, and amusing. I took some video with the iPhone to show Katester who was otherwise engaged while I disported. The effect is to breath a great deal of life into those spare ink paintings that are otherwise, truth to be told, lifeless and repetitive. None of the images on the official web site do the work justice.
Imagine the aubergine stalks swaying gently in the breeze as the butterflies float by while the grasshoppers hop now and then, and you have it.
For more information cut-and-paste this link into the browser.
http://www.koreanculture.org.au/LeeLeeNamDigital
P.S. I do not post my video for fear of the Copyright Storm Troopers who patrol these blogs.
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