(한글 인터뷰 전문 확인 링크)

Gallery Hyundai has called on Jin Han Lee for the inaugural exhibition of its New York Project Space. Meet colorful facets of life captured by the artist who boldly embraces the world—or, other names for love. 

Harper’s Bazaar: Whether it’s Gyeomjae Jeong Seon’s Hanyang (old name for Seoul) or Edward Hopper’s New York, the places surrounding artists often deeply influence their practice. You moved to London in 2007, lived there for 15 years, and permanently moved back to Korea a few years ago. While your earlier works evoked a sense of loneliness, your recent works seem to radiate a more vivid and liberated energy.

Jin Han Lee: In the early years of living in the UK, loneliness was a key driving force behind my work. This includes the sense of disconnection caused by language barriers with foreign audiences and colleagues, as well as the sorrow of being unable to share emotions with loved ones. My work grew out of that feeling of lack, a sense of indebtedness for what I was missing. Over time, those voids gradually began to fill. I felt comfortable living in the UK during the last three years of my life there. Ironically, that comfort made it harder to paint. Living there felt easy, but painting became uneasy. That’s why I wanted to start over from point zero. While I was reflecting on the need for change, the COVID-19 pandemic happened, and I eventually moved my studio to Korea. Now, I truly feel at ease. When I lived in the UK, I often felt pressured to explain myself and my work, but here that burden has been mostly lifted. As a result, the materiality of paint and the motifs I’ve developed over time are variating more freely on canvas.

Harper’s Bazaar: How has your studio environment changed?

Jin Han Lee: My studio in London was in an isolated area. Back then, I couldn’t afford the kind of open, spacious environment I have now, and the weather and surroundings weren’t ideal either. My current studio in Seoul feels alive. People pass by the window, music drifts in from afar, and the smell of food fills the air. I truly feel like I’m part of the world. I see artmaking as a journey of bringing oneself outward into the world. In the past, I struggled to find my place in it, and that tension drove my work—now, I feel like I’m stepping into the world, which brightens up my paintings as well.

Harper’s Bazaar: You might also be growing more curious about life beyond the art world.

Jin Han Lee: In the past, most of my relationships were within the art world, and I constantly pushed myself into new, progressive, trendy spaces. I frequented conferences and exhibitions overseas. I’ve recently grown more curious about the ways people my age live day to day, and diverse feelings that come with those experiences. The most non-artistic thing I’ve recently done is… (laughs) visiting Daepssari Park by the Imjin River. In the UK, the seasons don’t take distinct turns, so I never had the chance to enjoy fall foliage or cherry blossoms. But in Korea, I’ve come to appreciate the distinct seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter. I even took photos of flowers at the botanical garden like moms do (laughs).

Harper’s Bazaar: Your work Reading the Private Lives of Plants was inspired by Lee Seung-u’s novel The Private Lives of Plants, right?

Jin Han Lee: Yes, that’s right. I’ve read nearly all of Lee Seung-u’s works, but The Private Lives of Plants is one of my favorites. Creating Reading the Private Lives of Plants felt like grasping onto a scene from that novel and translating it into a painting. Unconditional love has always been an enduring theme in my work.

Harper’s Bazaar: “‘Love is different for everyone,’ I told myself. ‘Even if the essence of love is the same, no one loves in the same way. A hundred people love in a hundred different ways. So, there is no such thing as an unremarkable love.’” I underlined this sentence in The Private Lives of Plants. If you replace the word “love” with “life,” the sentence could also read as an aphorism for your work. As you mentioned earlier, your practice seeks to explore a form of universal communication that transcends language, fueled by the expansive palette that is facets of human life.

Jin Han Lee: That’s what I hope gives my paintings their strength. When I first read the novel, I thought the protagonists’ love was a failed one. But reading it again years later, I realized that “failure” was just how the world defines it. Perhaps theirs was a deeper kind of love—defined not by presence, but by a lifelong yearning for one another. Rather than confining love to a single definition, I hope to capture its many nuances in my paintings. At the very least, I want my work to mirror the beauty in “failure.” I envision a kind of subversion—where breakups, struggles, and pain, the darker facets of life, can feel meaningful or even uplifting. Painting is the medium that makes this possible for me.

Harper’s Bazaar: There are several recurring motifs across your work—bare feet and flowers, for instance. Are they tied to personal memories?

Jin Han Lee: As the sentence from The Private Lives of Plants you just mentioned says, even when love is shared, everyone expresses it differently. You can see it when couples argue with one saying “You don’t love me,” and the other retorts “Yes, I do.” When trying to understand another person’s love, I believe physical sensation is more reliable than emotion. I grew up in a large, multigenerational household, and my mother always wore padded socks. There was an unspoken understanding that bare feet were something to be hidden. Feet touch each other only in the most intimate relationships—between lovers in bed or among close family members. For me, painting feet became a way of expressing love without words. In the past, I painted feet falling into despair; now, I paint feet falling in love. Their forms have gradually become more abstract and refined, to the point where some viewers may no longer recognize their forms. They’ve transformed from a recurring motif within my work into a symbolic space. Lately, I am painting a lot of flowers instead. As the middle child between two sisters, and raised in a family that clearly dictated what a daughter “should” be like, I saw myself as a wilting flower growing up. That may be why the flowers I paint tend to be faded or dark in color, rather than bright or pastel-toned.

Harper’s Bazaar: Your work seems to embody both East Asian and Western sensibilities.

Jin Han Lee: As a child, I often made brushstrokes that resembled calligraphy, almost unconsciously. I think it’s because I spent so much time with my grandparents, particularly my grandmother, who had a deep love for calligraphy. I still frequently draw with brush pens. It was during my residency in 2019, while experimenting with VR, that I became more attuned to the contrasting sensations of pushing and pulling. Western painting often emphasizes outward, pushing strokes, while East Asian painting favors inward, pulling gestures. In VR, even a pulling motion brought the brushstroke to life—and that experience reawakened my sensitivity to the calligraphic. It became a key moment that helped me further refine my visual language.

Harper’s Bazaar: It’s fascinating how all these elements—your empathy towards the lives of others, the smoothness of feet, deep red flower petals, calligraphic drawings, nuances of love—come together within a single canvas.

Jin Han Lee: In the past, I focused on a single motif in each canvas. Now, I’m more interested in how multiple elements can coexist within a single frame. I almost always included pictorial devices like mirrors, glass domes, or prisms, but nowadays, I sense that all those aspects are already integrated within me. Words and images flow more intuitively now.

Harper’s Bazaar: You’ve said that you’re constantly asking yourself what painting is, and why you still choose to paint. What’s your answer these days?

Jin Han Lee: I’d like to answer with Albert Camus’s 1957 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, where he says he never placed art above all else. I believe the tendency to elevate art above everything in life can leave the artist feeling isolated. His speech reflects how I try to blend my own peculiarities into the world around me. 

“For myself, I cannot live without my art. But I have never placed it above everything. If, on the other hand, I need it, it is because it cannot be separated from my fellow men, and it allows me to live, such as I am, on one level with them. It is a means of stirring the greatest number of people by offering them a privileged picture of common joys and sufferings. It obliges the artist not to keep himself apart; it subjects him to the most humble and the most universal truth. And often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others. The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from.” 

After our interview, I sat down and slowly read Camus’ speech she had sent me through AirDrop. Between life and art, that’s where I found the artist. And that is exactly where Jin Han Lee also stood.

– Editor : Anna Son, Photographer : Lee WooJeong