Lee Ufan
b. 1936, South Korea 
Contemporary artist and sculptor
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ART
Vol. 4
Lee Ufan 1936


Lee Ufan (b. 1936, South Korea) is a leading figure in contemporary Korean art. His work explores the relationships between materials, space, and human perception by blending Eastern and Western philosophical ideas into a minimalist artistic language. 

Lee did not begin his journey as a painter, but as a philosopher. Growing up in the aftermath of the Korean War, he was drawn to questions of existence from an early age. In 1956, he briefly entered the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University to study Oriental painting, but left after only three months. At the age of twenty-one, he made a bold decision that would shape his life. He boarded a ship to Japan under the pretext of visiting his ill uncle. Once there, he decided to settle and study philosophy at Nihon University, graduating in 1961. 

After graduation, Lee chose the path of an artist over that of a philosopher. Yet, breaking into the Japanese art world as a foreigner was far from easy. Lee got multiple rejections from exhibitions and competitions facing repeated setbacks. Soon, Lee’s theoretical contributions to the Mono-ha movement first drew attention. Emerging in Japan in the late 1960s, Mono-ha emphasized presenting everyday materials with minimal alteration by allowing the objects themselves to speak. Lee’s critical essay written in 1969 which underscored a phenomenological approach of returning to the thing itself established him as a key theorist for the movement and drew recognition in the art world. 

Lee Ufan is famously known as the “painter of points.” His 점으로부터
From Point and 선으로부터 From Line series use simple brush strokes, dots, and lines on canvas to examine the essence of existence and boundaries between material. These works reflect a philosophical dialogue between ‘emptiness’ (무, 無) in Eastern thought and ‘Being’ in Western philosophy. 
A foundational moment in Lee’s life shaped the lifelong motif that defines his art. When he was a small child, a teacher who taught him calligraphy and painting once said
“All things in the universe begin with a point and end with a point.”

This idea, rooted from ancient Eastern ideology, became the philosophical seed of Lee’s art. A point represents a beginning and an end, the birth and dissolution of all existence. When points connect, they form lines, which signify time. Gathered together, points create images like mountains, stones, and people, but once they scatter, nothing really remains. 

Lee inherited this spiritual motif in his entire practice: that painting begins and ends with a point and that all gestures, however small, participate in the rhythm of creation and disappearance.
From line (1978) is a large-scale oil painting Lee created during a period when he worked between Tokyo and Paris. The painting features twenty-six vertical blue lines, arranged individually or in small clusters across a rectangular canvas. Each line stretches nearly the full height of the work with the paint gradually thinning from top to bottom, creating a sense of both weight and fading. Lee applied each line with repeated gestures, one by one. In this way, the work embodies a relationship between movement and the flow of time. Each line begins dense and heavy, gradually fading to nothing, suggesting a line must have a beginning and an end. Lee’s work here resonates with ideas from phenomenology, particularly those of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Lee further explores how perception links the viewer, the painting, and life.

From Line belongs to a larger series created between 1973 and 1984, running alongside Lee’s From Point series. 

Over the decades, he has continued to examine these themes in later works, such as From Winds (1982) and Correspondence (1993). 



“When I stand in front of the canvas, nothing is ever exactly the same -
the day’s weather, the air, my mood, the brush, water, oil, paint, even my own body. All these factors interact in different ways. Even if I plan out
the drawing carefully, deciding a few centimeters here and there, when I actually start painting, the painting takes its own path. Sometimes a mark needs to be moved slightly, adjusted.

Although a painting might look as if it was completed in one go, it is actually the result of countless layers. I paint and repaint, let it dry for a week or ten days, then paint again, repeating this process three or four times. Completing a single work can take around forty days. With each painting, the work gradually grows larger. Each time I paint, small variations or deviations appear - this little unpredictability is what
keeps painting enjoyable. You don’t paint exactly as you imagine.

If everything turned out exactly as you planned, it wouldn’t be interesting at all. The idea itself becomes a kind of seed, bringing along unexpected elements - something added, something lost - and that is what makes a painting alive”

Lee Ufan, interview with @wkorea

 




“You never paint exactly as you imagine. If everything went according to plan, there’d be no excitement at all. An idea is just a starting point. It can grow, shift, or bring something unexpected along the way. Things get added and lost. That’s what makes a painting come alive.”

Lee Ufan, interview with @wkorea
As an editor, and as someone who admires Lee Ufan’s work, I can’t help but see a parallel to life itself. Life, too, would be easy and predictable if everything happened exactly as we planned and if every step led and guaranteed success. But a guaranteed life isn’t necessarily a happy one. Sometimes plans go sideways, things don’t work out, and events unfold in ways we couldn’t have foreseen. Just like in Lee’s painting, when something unforeseen is added or when something we assumed would happen doesn’t, that’s when life becomes interesting and full of meaning.