Lee Chul Soo

Available Works

Korean master woodcut artist Lee Chul Soo creates visual and verbal poems that express universal messages. They reflect his life as a rice farmer, Zen Buddhist practitioner, and keen observer of daily events taking place locally in his home village, and at the national and global levels. Lee’s poetic reflections express the relationships humans have with their natural environment, their families and neighbors, and with all people around the world. Lee Chul Soo draws compassionate and humorous analogies between nature and humanity. In “Face to Face” three small insects stand up to a large praying mantis, willing to sacrifice their lives; and in “Don’t Worry” two parents walk through an “unusual wind,” trusting their children will follow.

Lee Chul Soo was born in 1954 and at an early age, without formal training, began his artistic studies. His first major exhibition was in Seoul in 1981. He is widely respected for his work as printmaker for the Min-jung Art Movement (Democratic Art Movement for the People) in the 1980’s. At that time, his bold, graphic work addressed major Korean social and political issues. Mr. Lee’s artistic focus shifted when he and his family moved to a small rice farm in the countryside in 1987. Now, most of Lee Chul Soo’s woodcuts are characterized by their minimalism and laconic prose. On his farm the artist grows most of his own food, writes poetry, and makes woodcut prints by hand in the traditional way, on handmade Korean mulberry paper.

Lee Chul Soo’s woodcuts have been exhibited in Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, throughout Korea, and in 2003, Davidson Galleries was honored to exhibit his work for the first time in the United States. Visual Poetry is the third solo exhibition of Lee’s work at Davidson Galleries.

• Recent exhibitions: Visual Poetry, August 2009; Reflections: A Decade of Woodcuts, April 2005