Ayana Hanbich Lee is a contemporary abstract painter whose practice investigates the non-linear structure of time through the material behaviors of paper, wood, paint and other chemical. Having lived and created artworks between South Korea and the United States. Her work reached a wider public when several of her paintings were featured in a Netflix-broadcast Korean drama, Moon in the Day.

Effacement, the core of Lee’s practice lies the understanding that time does not unfold as a straight line. This extraordinary method is paradoxical to the traditional purpose of painting. It reincarnates stratified layers, revealing twisted, intertwined temporal strata as time-bearing forms. It redefines temporality through the sequential removal of layered paper and pigment, incorporating etching and chemical processes. Recognized for its “dimensional collision”, the structural juxtaposition of past and present.

Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?

I was born in Seoul, and moved to the States in 2008, and moved back and forth between the two countries due to education. I can say I was continuously exposed to seeing everything as new, old things as new again; things I already knew as things I needed to sense again. This repetitive re-encounter shaped my early sensitivity toward perception: the way the outside world enters the inner-self, and how that inner realm responds.

Fine Arts in general was my desire from an early age. I was recognized in school-wide, statewide, and later international competitions, and eventually admitted to The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, my long-desired institution. Although I can say I’ve lived in the realm of Art, the genuine journey began not through awards or education, the genuine artist journey started when I stated myself as it. which is not too long ago.

What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your work?

My early work centered on the interior self in emotions, memory, and the fragile contour of presence. Over time this expanded outward into the surroundings of my days, and eventually into “presency,” the encapsulation of moments. Ephemerality became not a subject but a medium of intimacy.

Shifts between two cultures, languages, and my inborn characteristics highlighted my interest in the concept of perception; the ways of processing information, and “logic” how it is culturally promised; just the general ideology of how we communicate. My theme is not inspired by culture A nor culture B , but rather the transition between A and B, then B to A, and in-between zone. It had functioned as a gear to spark my curiosity, like the hidden rule beneath communication itself.

These parts gradually became two branches, temporality and perception. Over time, they merged into a more coherent methodology. My Sequence Paintings (Making-Film), contain presence arranged in order, seeking to be communicated as a dialogue.

The Sequence Painting layered by overpainting, and my Effacement technique, which paradoxically removes to reveal, serve to highlight the intertwined or twisted layers as time containing elements, a three-dimensional collision. Depending on how the viewer reads them, the order can follow the logic of creation or twist into new perceptual sequences. There is a chronological order, but the viewer also can choose alternative pathways.

Effacement became a pivotal breakthrough in my practice. Rather than adding more paint to affirm presence, I began removing material to re-awaken previous events embedded within the work. This act of erasure is not destruction but revelation; to efface is to excavate. It allows the hidden past to speak again, not as nostalgia, but as a renewed temporal consciousness.

Conventional painting often prioritizes covering, sealing, or finalizing a surface. But I found that full coverage erases the history of the work, burying the very time that gives it meaning. My approach therefore shifted toward a leaner methodology, so that earlier layers remain perceptible. Each visible trace becomes an ethical choice: how much of the past must remain in order for the present to be understood?

In recent years, several professional artists, graduate-level art students, and material researchers have reached out and visited my studio to learn aspects of the Effacement technique. I have also begun offering small workshop sessions to demonstrate its process in person. These visits often evolve into in-depth discussions about layered temporality, the ethics of erasure, and structural approaches to non-linear time in painting. It has been meaningful to see the methodology extend beyond my own practice and participate in broader conversations within contemporary abstraction and material-based research.

The first mark may reappear only at the final moment of viewing, like discovering the first alphabet at the end of a sentence. By resisting total coverage and painting in a deliberately lean way, I preserve the chronology of creation. What seems to be the present is always intertwined with what came before, forming a temporal loop in which past and future continually reawaken one another.

What is your creative process like? Do you follow a routine or work spontaneously?

I believe all things are about balance in nature of the universe, all in the conversation about balance, whether the “transitioning” from in-balance to balance or maintaining certain ratio of balance, negotiating imbalance, which all can create certain energy, and that is where I get so and so called inspiration.

My process involves cultivating quietness through sketching and prayer, which creates a calm, pond-like wavelength. And sometimes the energy burst out-from-my intention, I call it a “whoosh”, when it hits, I surrender to it completely and let it do its job until it dries out. Art is so blunt in this way that audience often sense it with me. I value routine, but I also respect spontaneity. Together, they form the ecology in which my work is created.

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

A recent shift occurred when I transitioned from New York to Seoul. Completing my BFA at Cooper Union strengthened my theoretical grounding. After that my individual practice moved to pure application of the painting in Art. The painting’s methodology, materiality became a part of a structured engagement with time, sequence, and erasure.

Visual art is often consumed in a single instant, while books, theatre, and cinema are experienced linearly. My practice breaks this ‘one-second consumption’ inherent to painting by integrating cinematic temporality, sequential imagery, and filmic sensibility. In this way, the painting becomes quasi-cinematic, time-based, durational, and unfolding.

This direction shaped by an interest in philosophical order, structural power, and the logic of the universe. The core of my practice is no longer purely introspective; it has expanded from a microscopic inner voice to a macro-structural frame that examines systems, perception, temporality, and cognition. Again, My interest is in how origin and conclusion can collapse into one another.

How do you approach exhibiting your work? What are your goals when showing your art in public spaces?

I was initially hesitant to exhibit my artworks publicly, but that changed when several of my paintings were featured in the Korean drama ‘Moon in the Day’, now available on Netflix. More than ten of my artworks were broadcast, generating unexpected engagement with diverse audiences and extending my practice beyond traditional art spaces. The series achieved international top-8 rankings, showing me the unique capacity of media to circulate art through new channels.

Since then, I have embraced interdisciplinary collaborations, film, media, design, and other cultural interfaces that allow painting to migrate into expanded contexts.

What role do you believe art plays in social and cultural change?

I believe Art is everywhere. One blink of an eye will show you tons of Art. Or even eye-closed can be seen once knowing the spectrum of Art. Once someone learns to perceive art, it will be hard to be unseen again.

Art can hold voice, spirit and time. It holds the period we might forget and preserves the consciousness of a moment. Art influenced in all academia and has historical consciousness. It makes us to acknowledge where we stand, who we are, and what chronology of past moments constructed our present. These questions form a pattern that allows us to perceive what is yet to come.The appreciation of Art should not only come from emotional resonance; it should also invite intellectual engagement. Art challenges us to think, perceive, and re-experience the world.

Text & photo courtesy of Ayana Hanbich Lee

Website: https://www.ayanalee.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayanalee.art/