Jaeheon Lee’s work navigates the complex intersections of identity, tradition, modernity, and the alienation that arises from cultural dislocation. His figures, adorned in elaborate costumes inspired by celebrity and idol culture, are sometimes set against vivid, textured backgrounds and other times isolated in stark simplicity—a contrast that reflects his contemplation on a sense of disconnection from the past. The multifaceted, blurred faces suggest a struggle for self-clarity, resonating with broader themes of identity politics and the fragmented nature of modern existence.

Rooted in Korea yet deeply engaged with Western art traditions, Lee grapples with expressing “Koreanness” in a globalized visual language. His work resists nostalgia, focusing instead on the remnants of historical rupture as a way to interrogate his own artistic identity. Drawing from Korea’s idol culture—symbols of perfection and global influence—Lee examines their dual role as representations of national identity and agents of societal pressures that erase and reconstruct identity within modern consumer culture.

Through vibrant, layered compositions, Lee expresses a tension between dazzling, vibrant surfaces and an inner void—a metaphor for the relentless consumption and emptiness in today’s cultural landscape. While his reflections are informed by the culture in Korea, the emotional void and nostalgia speak to a universal experience.


Jaeheon Lee (b. 1976 in Ulgin, South Korea) draws on a multitude of influences, synthesizing the techniques of Velasquez, Goya, Bacon, Giacometti, Picasso, Richter, and many others into a unique amalgamated style of painting that brings Korean cultural references and his personal thoughts on the contemporary human condition into dynamic dialogue with the Western canon of painting. Lee aims to bridge the gap between the historical Korean painting tradition and contemporary Korean culture, closing the historical disconnect in figurative painting caused by the Westernization and modernization of the country after Japanese occupation. With a particular spirituality and poetics that permeate his brushwork, Lee, like Giacometti, pursues the existential shape of the human figure by repetitively painting and erasing. The effervescent subjects populating Lee’s paintings, stripped of individual identity, tend to coalesce into a single figure representing for him the state of human civilization in the 21st century. They are beings akin to ghosts, suspended in a state between life and death, between being and memory.

Lee holds an MFA from Seoul National University and is based in Jecheon, South Korea. Solo exhibitions include Ghosts in the Garden at Management, New York; My Ghost at Gallery SP, Seoul; Night Vacuum at Place Mak, Seoul; Abject Beauty at Shin Gallery, New York; Man on the moon at Gallery Chosun, Seoul, and others. Group exhibitions include Time Lapse at PACE, Seoul; The Possible and the Elsewhere at Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong; One at a time at WESS, Seoul; Are You Depressed? at Seoul National University Museum of Art; Noon of April at Geomjaejeongseon Art Museum, Seoul; Mindful Mindless at Seoul Olympic Museum of Art; The Secret: Margin of error at Gwangju Museum of Art, the Arko Art Center in Seoul, and the Busan Museum of Art; Ghost House at Jeonbuk Province Art Museum, Jeonju, and others. Lee’s work is in the collections of the Government Art Bank of Korea, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, and the Seoul National University Museum of Art.