Kyungseo Lee
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
My name is Kyungseo Lee, and I am a painter based in London, originally from South Korea. I moved to London in late 2021. I hold a Bachelor's degree in Painting from Hongik University in Korea and a Master's degree in Painting from the Royal College of Art in the UK.
Ever since I was young, I just knew I loved to draw. I remember sometimes staying up all the way till dawn, sketching away—I was a night owl even back then. I used to bring my drawings to school and share them with my classmates, especially the sketchbooks full of cartoons I had made up. I still remember the first time my mom took me to an art academy and signed me up. My mom told the teacher that my dream is to become a cartoonist. The teacher said, “When they're kids, they all dream of becoming cartoonists, but over time they end up wanting to become artists instead.” I found that a bit annoying, as it sounded dismissive. But later on, I realised it was the act of drawing itself that I loved—not the storytelling. I came to see that being a cartoonist was more about the narratives than the drawing style. I think that dream certainly started to shift toward becoming an artist after I entered art high school. I chose painting as my major, and the department was heavily focused on encouraging students to pursue a career as artists.
Even though both my BA and MA degrees are in Painting, there was a time during my university years in Korea when I was navigating the space between illustration and fine art. Interested in the overlap between the two, I decided to double major in Visual Communication Design. For a few years, I took classes from a different perspective, exploring what lay between the two disciplines.
Although I always knew I wanted to become an artist, the more time I spent in the design department, the more I realised that my brain just isn’t wired for design or illustration. I have enormous respect for designers—I often find them more creative than artists based in contemporary art. However, I found that my own temperament aligns more closely with the open-ended nature of painting. In contrast, the purpose of design and illustration often leans toward using visual language to persuade or communicate a clear message. I didn’t want my art to function as a tool—I wanted to create art for its own sake.
I’m grateful I went through that phase. It helped me understand what I truly wanted to pursue and gave me the certainty that I had chosen the right path.
Your paintings have a strong sense of movement, with figures that seem to dissolve into gestures and flowing colour. How do you think about movement when building a composition, and what role does it play in expressing emotion or ambiguity?
I usually don’t plan a fixed composition in detail before I start painting, so rubbing off or painting over parts of the canvas are inevitable. This process allows movement to happen naturally in my work. The layers are not completely erased but they accumulate and build up, creating a dynamic flow on the surface.
When building a composition, movement is essential because it reflects the impermanence and ever-shifting nature of life. The figures often dissolve into gestures and flowing colour, conveying the fluidity of human experience—never fully fixed or defined. This ambiguity allows viewers to engage with the painting personally, finding their own meanings within the shifting forms.
I see the process of my paintings as starting with myriad possibilities and narrowing down through certain decisions toward the final outcome. This is why I especially try to keep the first layer really open by holding myself back and avoiding being too selective from the start. By pouring thinned oil paint on the canvas flat, I let colours sit organically without the constraints of deliberate brushwork. This way of unconscious process evokes new ideas and complex emotions for me as each painting becomes a process of discovery, with unexpected interactions between the combinations of colours, the evolving composition, and the emergence of figures within the oil stains. The movement within the composition mirrors this unpredictability and emotional depth, inviting both me and the viewer to embrace uncertainty and transformation.
The tension between celebration and objectification of the body is central to your practice. How do you hope viewers respond to the discomfort or uncertainty your images provoke?
The figures in my paintings are not in a fixed or definite state—caught between bodily celebration and social conformity, between wanting and escaping, and being loved and lusted after—allowing for multiple interpretations through the phenomenon of pareidolia, depending on the viewer’s perception. These paintings arise from my own confusion and questioning, shaped by living in a world that often demands morality in stark contrasts, even though life itself is rarely so clear-cut. In response, my work resists such binaries; intimacy and violence, affection and aversion coexist here. Sometimes, that makes the images emotionally uncomfortable, but I believe that discomfort comes from honestly confronting reality, which isn’t glamourised. In that sense, the abstraction in my figures allows these tensions to surface more universally, without being reduced to a single narrative or identity. I want to continue expressing something universal—the complexity of human experiences.
Rather than explaining my intentions or trying to guide viewers toward a specific understanding of these ambiguous spaces, I prefer my paintings to raise more questions than to provide answers. I want the tension within my work to serve as a starting point for viewers to reconsider their existing perceptions of the body—to question what they may have taken for granted and challenge their assumptions. But most importantly, I wish for viewers to project their own thoughts and emotions onto my work—that alone is enough for me.
Your work touches on social polarisation in Korea and the complexity of individual values. How do these cultural tensions find their way into your imagery, even when the figure becomes abstract?
I don’t think my work directly addresses social polarisation, but growing up in those circumstances made me think deeply about gender issues. Before my twenties, I don't think I was particularly aware of or concerned about what it meant to be a woman. That changed during my time in school when many incidents happened at my university in particular—such as the display of a controversial Ilbe-inspired sculpture, the #MeToo allegation against the student council president, and the illegal filming crimes at the campus—sparked public debate. These conversations became widespread by the time I was in university, and I had to confront them in my daily life, every time I stepped onto campus.
I think growing up in a society imposing shame and judgment on women, my emotionally charged drawings of women push against a culture that wants women to be ashamed of desire. Over time, I’ve developed a more abstract approach to expressing these ideas because I feel more comfortable working in that style.
I consider abstraction as a deliberate strategy, which allows me to convey complex emotions and ideas while revisiting my memories without explicit representation, opening up space for broader interpretation. It can also serve as a way to navigate societal restrictions without oversharing my personal experiences while still expressing my perspective. In this sense, abstraction is both a form of escape and an intentional means of communication.
To add on, not only have such social circumstances given me many thoughts around womanhood, but it has also sparked my deep interest in the grey areas between black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. In a polarised society, individual values are often pigeonholed when people express certain opinions or beliefs, making it easy to overlook those who exist in the middle ground. Additionally, my genuine curiosity and admiration for how each person has their own universe of values and experiences have led my work to explore this middle ground.
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day / studio routine? What is your studio like?
I usually go to the studio in the afternoon and work until around midnight. During busy periods, especially when I have upcoming shows at the last minute, I often end up working very late—sometimes until 3 a.m. I really enjoy working at night because it's a sacred time for me. It’s essential to have uninterrupted hours that are solely mine.
I used to think my paintings were fast-paced, and I would declare something finished or failed right away. But now I’ve realised it’s worth giving more time when a painting feels unresolved. It’s important not to force the painting. I would come to the studio another day because it helps me see the work with fresh eyes and return to the painting when I’m ready.
When I’m not in the studio, I spend time doing the boring stuff, like paperwork, editing photographs of my paintings, or promoting my work—which also takes a lot of patience. Since most of my works are not derived from photographs but stem solely from my imagination, memories, and experiences, I try to actively engage with the world and absorb things with sensitivity. These inputs naturally seep into my work, often without me even realising it.
What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?
Recently, I had the chance to see Egon Schiele’s oeuvre at the Galerie Belvedere in Vienna. While I was more drawn to his drawings than his paintings, one painting in particular—The Embrace from 1917—really caught my eye. Unlike many of his drawings, this painting captures poignant intimacy between a couple.
I listened to a podcast from the Serpentine Gallery on the theme of intimacy, which got me thinking about what makes us yearn for it. I realised that, as humans, we have a desire to share our vulnerability and connect with others. Rather than focusing on the romantic pleasure between a couple, I believe The Embrace captures a different kind of moment—an embrace that reflects loving someone unconditionally, just as they are.
During my residency at Soho Revue, I made a print inspired by this piece, but I felt something was missing. Eventually, I realised that the gaunt male body is actually the focal point of Schiele’s painting—its exposed skin and visible bones emphasise vulnerability.
My own work, however, expresses a different kind of emotion: the longing for someone you can no longer reach and dwelling on memories you’ve shared with that person. So the context is different—though I must admit, I may have made the muscles a bit too bulky (haha).
What are you currently working on?
Earlier this year, I found myself thinking deeply about what makes my paintings distinctive from those of other painters. Reflecting back on the joy of drawing that I mentioned earlier, I realised that even as a child, what I enjoyed most was drawing people, not landscapes or objects. There was something mesmerising about drawing the lines of the human body. I believe I have a certain ability to capture those lines, and I began to feel that instead of abstracting the figure to the point of unrecognisability, I should embrace and retain what I already have. I came to the conclusion that making the most of my strengths is essential.
This led me to consider that if I wanted to reintroduce more figurative elements into my work, I needed to delve more deeply into technical aspects—not only in terms of how to handle oil paint, but also in understanding the fundamental principles of visual phenomena regarding value, composition, and colour. I wondered what lies at the end of figurative art, and since I had never been taught in depth how to paint traditionally with oils, I felt compelled to study how the old masters worked. To pursue this, I attended a traditional still life workshop led by the Italian painter Daniela Astone, which proved incredibly helpful in enabling me to achieve what I want in my own paintings more effectively. She taught me a great deal— from the intricate details of how traditional painters organise their palettes to the fundamental principles guiding value and composition.
Over time, I came to see the figurative and the abstract not as separate categories, but as deeply interconnected. As Cherith Summers noted in her review of my work, “In my work, the abstract and the representational are inextricably linked—one cannot exist without the other.”
