LEE Jong-gu l Pensive : 思惟

Hakgojae Gallery presents _Pensive_ : 思惟, a solo exhibition by LEE Jong-gu, on view from May 20 to June 20, 2026. Centered on the image of the Pensive Bodhisattva, the exhibition explores the tension between contemporary reality and the ways in which it is perceived and contemplated. Turning his gaze inward after years of confronting the external world, the artist proposes a form of “contemplative realism” through which life may be reflected upon and healed. Grounded in the social realist concerns that have shaped his practice since the 1980s, LEE now expands his artistic horizon toward questions of human existence and universality. The exhibition offers a focused examination of an oeuvre that seeks to move beyond social agendas toward the spirituality of life and peace. Since the 1980s, LEE Jong-gu has consistently explored the realities of farmers and rural communities at the center of the Korean _Minjung_ Art movement. His portraits of farmers painted on government-issued rice sacks—works that directly exposed the hidden consequences of industrialization and urbanization—have become landmark images visualizing the structural contradictions of Korean society. Yet his paintings have never remained mere representations of local sentiment. Contemporary social events have continually appeared in his canvases as vivid landscapes of the times. In recent years, however, experiences of isolation during the pandemic, an acute awareness of mortality, and the life transition of retirement have led his practice toward a more existential and ontological direction. Time spent walking, contemplating through the body, and undertaking pilgrimages to Buddhist temples opened a new way of confronting human existence and life itself. The gaze once directed outward toward social reality gradually turned inward, toward the self and the temporality of inner experience. Around this time, LEE encountered the Pensive Bodhisattva in _A Room of Quiet Contemplation_ at the National Museum of Korea, discovering in it not merely a religious icon, but an attitude of being that contemplates the world in profound silence. At the heart of the exhibition lies what LEE calls “embodied contemplation,” a mode of reflection that does not remain within abstract meditation. Instead, it lays bare existential processes inscribed upon the body through illness, aging, walking, and breathing. By placing the figure of the Pensive Bodhisattva alongside secular landscapes, LEE translates the Buddhist philosophy of Non-Duality (Bul-I, 不二) into painterly form. His works suggest that life and death, suffering and peace, humanity and nature are not separate entities, but interdependent presences engaged in perpetual circulation. The visual structure of the paintings reinforces this philosophical stance. Beside the deeply meditative Bodhisattva appear waves, flames, vulnerable bodies, and crowds, creating a palpable visual tension. Here, the Pensive Bodhisattva transcends its status as a sacred figure and becomes the very gaze of contemplation silently observing a turbulent reality. By juxtaposing sublime Buddhist imagery with stark corporeality, LEE underscores that the sacred and the profane, spirit and flesh, can never truly be separated. Titles such as _Beyond Ignorance, Non-Duality (Bul-i), The Defiled Land,_ and _Bhumisparsha Mudra_ invoke Buddhist concepts without remaining confined to doctrinal representation. Rather, they summon the fractured landscapes of a contemporary world marked by war, disaster, hatred, and conflict, questioning the existential condition of humanity amid chaos. Instead of depicting specific events directly, LEE evokes the anxieties and violence of the age through metaphorical resonance. Rejecting emotional excess and dramatic spectacle, he maintains a measured distance and profound silence, allowing viewers to encounter the works within their own contemplative stillness. _Pensive_ : 思惟 illuminates the moment in which LEE Jong-gu’s long engagement with social realism expands into a deeper inquiry into the essence of human existence. If his earlier works were relentless records exposing the contradictions of their era, his recent paintings shift their center of gravity toward questions concerning the origins of life itself. His paintings now move beyond representing the surface of events and enter a field of contemplation that investigates the very ways human beings perceive, remember, and inhabit the world. Beneath the silent gaze of the Pensive Bodhisattva, viewers encounter landscapes where bodily finitude, traces of existence, and flickering passages of light and darkness intersect. Within this charged distance, LEE poses a fundamental question: What are we truly witnessing, and what kind of world are we living in?