Hinoki Cypress Wood Shavings Become Art: "Visualizing the Invisible"

Hyungwoo Lee's Solo Exhibition 'Hinoki Cypress' at Noh Gallery
Arranging Hinoki Cypress Wood Shavings on Canvas

The works evoke the feeling of looking at Arabic script. Dried hinoki cypress wood is delicately planed, sprayed with paint, and then placed on canvas. Aesthetic consideration is essential in this process. Although the pieces do not directly convey a specific meaning, the artist carefully arranges various objects to achieve precise placement, allowing viewers to experience beauty. This describes the works featured in Hyungwoo Lee's solo exhibition 'Hinoki Cypress' currently on display at Noh Gallery.

Hyungwoo Lee 'Untitled, Wood on Canvas' (2024). Noh Gallery

Noh Gallery is hosting Hyungwoo Lee's solo exhibition 'Hinoki Cypress,' showcasing works that flatten pieces of wood collected during the creative process. Lee's work is an artistic act aimed at visualizing the essence of invisible objects. Using wood shavings produced by continuous planing, he either spreads them out in an 'expansion and enlargement' method or reassembles them into compact cubes as sculptural forms.

This exhibition is Lee's first solo show in about five years since 2020. While his previous works focused on traditional wood carving to create forms, this time he experiments with a new approach by using wood shavings?the byproduct of sculpting?to create innovative two-dimensional compositions. At first glance, the works boast a natural sense of form, resembling paintings quickly drawn with lines and planes. Each wood shaving is carefully placed to complete the work, evoking the visibility of an object's essence. The exhibition's appeal lies in allowing visitors to experience the basic elements of form?points, lines, and planes?more sensorially, as a 'language of form.'

A representative from Noh Gallery stated, "This exhibition explores unfamiliar sensations from familiar materials and shares Hyungwoo Lee's original ideas that transcend the boundaries between sculpture and painting. Through artistic experiments that stand at the intersection of two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms, and between shape and sensation, we hope visitors will encounter new perceptions of objects, time, and space."

Interior view of Noh Gallery where the 'Hinoki Cypress' exhibition is held. Noh Gallery

Hyungwoo Lee graduated from the Department of Sculpture at Hongik University in 1981 and studied three-dimensional art and sculpture in Paris, France, and Rome, Italy. Since his solo exhibition in Rome in 1982, he has continued his artistic career to the present day. In 1997, he was selected as an artist for the Venice Biennale.

The exhibition runs until June 11 at Noh Gallery in Insa-dong.