Lee Seung Jio

Lee Seung Jio (1941-1990) is a pioneer of geometric abstraction who emerged from the avant- garde group of artists in 1960s Korea. As a founding member of the groups ORIGIN (1962–) and AG (Korean Avant-Garde Association, 1969–1975), he helped define the theoretical and methodological foundations of postwar Korean art. Throughout his 25-year-long career, Lee developed a distinctive visual vocabulary centered on abstract, pipe-like forms, cultivating a rare mechanical aesthetic among his Korean contemporaries.

From 1968 to 1971, Lee was awarded at the National Art Exhibition of Korea for four consecutive years, causing a stir in the conservative landscape at a time when abstract painting had yet to gain recognition. Alongside contemporaneous currents such as Conceptual Art, and Minimalism, and phenomenology, Lee maintained his commitment to the notion of “nucleus” he had developed, even as his work formed ties with Dansaekhwa after the mid- 1970s. After his 1988 trip to the U.S., Lee was strongly influenced by American art of the time, which led him to experiment with the fusion of painting and object, replacing the traditional canvas with materials such as aluminum, brass, and wooden panels. Though this trajectory was cut short by his passing in 1990, Lee was recognized throughout his career as “a rare example of rigorous geometric abstraction in the Korean art scene,” and remains a painter who pursued a strict self-analysis in service of the Korean avant-garde.

Lee's paintings are closely aligned with the optical precision of Op Art, yet stand apart in their rigorous, labor-intensive methods. His use of flat brushes, sandpaper, and masking tape enabled a mechanical surface smoothness that was rare in Korean painting of the time. Lee’s pioneering effort toward pure form has been described as a “condensed expression of the rapidly urbanizing landscape that surpasses vision itself.”