🎨 Chae HanLee (채한리 / Hanlee Chae), Artist

🖌️ About the Artist

Chae HanLee is a Western-style painter in the Korean contemporary art scene, a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / Tufts University. Through intense color and distorted line reminiscent of twentieth-century European Expressionism, she probes the very nature of human existence, and as a mid-career artist she has developed her own singular theme—"Humanity, That Dark Light"—as an ongoing series.

🌑 The Body of Work — "Humanity, That Dark Light"

Chae HanLee's central theme is the dark face of human existence and the fleeting moments that shine within it.

The Artist's Perspective *"The human being is a dark existence made of despair, sorrow, and rage. And yet there are moments when this dark being flickers faintly with light. It is the human in that moment whom I love, and whom I paint."* — Chae HanLee

The Working Process 1. Beginning from a faded photograph (family, relatives, and other close figures) 2. Drawing based on the photograph 3. Distorting and transforming the image by projecting memory and emotion onto it 4. Etching the impression through dense color and strong contour, while omitting detail to leave a lingering resonance

Characteristics of the Technique - 🎨 Intense, deeply resonant color reminiscent of German and European Expressionism - ✏️ Bold strokes and distorted lines - 🌗 The universal image of the solitary human—those who have borne the weight of a life

🪷 Signature Work — "108 Thoughts"

The signature work 〈108 Thoughts〉 arranges photographs of a small box, crumpled and re-crumpled so that its image shifts from frame to frame, giving visual form to the Buddhist 108 kleshas (defilements) and to the Huayan (Avatamsaka) dharma-realm idea of "一卽多 (one is many), 多卽一 (many is one)." One hundred and eight distinct images together form a single spiritual world.

🌌 Another Body of Work — "A Part of Me That Lies Outside of Me"

In her 2017 solo exhibition 〈A Part of Me That Lies Outside of Me〉, the artist pursued a "plane of being" that reaches beyond anthropocentrism.

On the artist's canvas appear: - 🐱 the cat and dog who share her home - 👴 memories of her departed parents - 🏞️ landscapes she loves - 💭 dreams within a languid afternoon nap - 🦅 the white eagle of myth

All of these beings take their place as "lying outside of me and, at the same time, a part of me." By setting herself on the same plane as these beings, the artist crosses the boundary between the human and the non-human—animal, object, memory, dream.

A Critic's Reading "Her canvas dreams of a plane of consistency where all beings meet as one—not only the human and the animal-object, but memory, dream, and landscape as well. A plane of being that cannot be reduced to the human." — Ryu Jae-sook (artist; member of the research collective Uri Silheomjadeul / "We, the Experimenters")

Representative Works - A Leader of Animals (Oil on Canvas, 80.3×100cm, 2016) - Messengers (Oil on Canvas, 80.3×100cm, 2016) - A Shelf, A Flower-Bird Screen, and others

🏛️ Selected Exhibition History

Solo Exhibitions | Year | Exhibition | Venue | |------|------|------| | 2024 | 〈Dream, Dream, Dream〉 — Chae HanLee Invitational | Hyehwa Art Center, Seoul | | 2024 | 〈The Colors of My Soul〉 — Art SIWOO "Artistic Spirit" Curated Series Invitational | Art SIWOO, Naju (9.2–10.6) | | 2022 | Chae HanLee Solo Exhibition | Seoul | | 2021 | 〈Humanity, That Dark Light〉 | Art Space H, Seoul (6.22–7.5) | | 2017 | 〈A Part of Me That Lies Outside of Me〉 | Seoul | | 2013 | Solo Exhibition | Seoul | | 2011 | 〈Netting〉 | Seoul | | 2008 | Lamer Leading Artist | Seoul | | 2005 | Solo Exhibition (twice) | Seoul |

Selected Group Exhibitions - 2024 Fine, Seven — Insa Art Center (6.26–7.1) - 2026 〈Jeon Tae-il and Us〉 — Arte Forest Curated Exhibition - 2023 Heyri Art Village, Gallery Ash, and many others - 2018 "I am" (four-artist show), "Yellow" (five-artist show) - 2007 Mesmerized Eyes — Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 🇺🇸

🎓 Education & Activities

- 🇺🇸 Studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / Tufts University - After returning to Korea from the United States, began her domestic practice → some seven to eight years of sustained artistic activity - Holds to a distinctive artistic vision that places the artist herself simultaneously as the object of the work and its creator

💬 In a Word

"Bold strokes and unfamiliar color—works that stir the heart in strange, unsettling ways." — Art SIWOO Gallery

"A strong, arresting impression and a distinctive, deeply resonant palette—at times they could pass for works of European Expressionism." — Art Space H