Filo Sofi Arts is pleased to present Hermitage, a digital exhibition of paintings by Arthur Kwon Lee. Curated by the gallery's director of philosophical praxis Donovan Irven, Ph.D., the show will launch on Wednesday July 1st at 7pm EDT with a virtual reception event and in the gallery's online Viewing Room.
With his latest body of work, Arthur gives physical form to our modern historical moment, tackling humanity’s experience of collective isolation during the Covid-19 quarantine. Mining traditions of ancient statuary from classical Greco-Roman and East Asian cultures, he reimagines classic figurative work with contemporary sensibility, utilizing a vibrant color palette and archetypal motifs to illustrate the sacred inner sanctum of our mind's eye.
Through Hermitage, viewers are invited to ruminate on humanity's social existence, and how our dramatic shift away from robust public interaction to social distancing has transformed our modalities of connection and harmonization.
Arthur Kwon Lee is a Korean American painter whose gestural mark making harmonizes expressive color palettes with world mythologies. His work has won awards from George Washington University, the Overseas National Institute, the Korean Artists Association, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Lee draws inspiration from a broad range of sources including Jungian psychoanalysis, local religious traditions, and his lifelong commitment to martial arts. Prior to developing a love for painting, Lee was a Division One athlete who placed in the US Tae Kwon Do Nationals for three consecutive years. Lee has carried this martial intensity into his artwork where it translated into large-scale works and a diversity of dynamic brushstrokes. The resulting compositions attest to an artist who uses his entire body to paint symbolically evocative works that contain oblique references to archetypical myths from around the world. Luminous colors, gestural expressionism, and philosophical acumen bring a refreshing sentiment to art that draws our sometimes compartmentalized and fractured times into a synthetic, representative whole.
Donovan Irven is a philosopher, essayist, and writer of fiction whose work has appeared in Queens Mob's Tea House and Erraticus. He is the author of two novels, the most recent of which is Things in Brown Paper.
Hermitage will remain on view throughout the summer. Gallery visits and consultation sessions are by appointment only.
