Lee Koz (b.1997) explores the accumulation of memories through the unconscious and the act of recording them, delving into the imaginative narratives that emerge as personal records are transformed into images. Her J-D series began as a dream journal documenting recurring dreams, rooted in the dissonance she experiences when specific memories underlying a dream diverge from how scenes unfold within it. To make sense of this, Lee writes down her dreams and then incorporates fragments into her paintings, where memories, scenes, and records take shape on the canvas. Each element holds a unique position and emphasis, sometimes exaggerated, reduced, or altered. In this way, her canvases become spaces where dreams and memories overlap, giving rise to new narratives.

Her Training Journal Drawing series, on the other hand, consists of drawings and paintings inspired by detailed training logs she kept—through writing and video—while participating on a recreational baseball team. For Lee, the act of recording serves as both a response to inner uncertainty and a driving force behind her creative work.

Lee Koz earned a B.F.A. in Painting from Ewha Womans University, where she is currently pursuing her M.F.A. Her solo exhibitions include Repetitive Description of Techne, A.P.23, Seoul (2023); and In This Air-Raid Shelter, Space Poolmoojil, Seoul (2021). She has also shown work in group exhibitions such as Holding onto the Round Hollow, Gallery Ebb&Flow, Seoul (2023); Explode-Revive-Record, Annpaack, Seoul (2023); and How to Detect Ambiguous Signals, A.P.23, Seoul (2023).

Can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background as an artist?

Hello, my name is Lee Koz, and I’m a painter based in Seoul. I studied Western Painting at Ewha Womans University, where I earned my BFA and am currently completing my MFA. Until recently, I worked in a university-provided studio, but have since moved into a new shared space with a fellow artist, where I’m focusing on my upcoming solo exhibition.

Over the past few years, I’ve held small solo shows at nonprofit spaces and participated in several group exhibitions. Currently, I’m represented by A-Lounge Contemporary, where I’m preparing for a solo exhibition.

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

I’m interested in the memories we accumulate unconsciously and how these are recorded over time. Personal records tend to be fragmented, rambling, or obsessive—documents reflecting emotional intensity where past and present blur together. As I reinterpret these records visually, they intertwine and overlap, creating painterly moments that feel fictional yet immersive. I explore the narrative possibilities that arise in this liminal space, constructing scenes that provoke fleeting immersion.

The J-D series originated from my dream journals documenting recurring dreams. These works explore the dissonance that occurs when the memory of a dream and its written record diverge—the confusion that arises when the two do not quite align. I’m fascinated by the shifting forms and interior logic that emerge in this space, drawing on dream fragments to create sequential, fictional narratives in painting.

Another ongoing project, Baseball Training Diary (BTD), is a drawing series documenting my amateur baseball training. Here, I obsessively record repetitive technical details—flawed mechanics, errors observed through video reviews, specific drills, and the physical environments and objects involved. This excessive documentation serves as a way to re-experience physical memory. The act of drawing mirrors the discipline and repetition of athletic training, transforming it into a meditative, performative practice.

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

Early in my practice, I translated recurring dream scenes directly onto canvas, focusing on forms concealed or wrapped in fabric—objects and bodies hidden or displaced. Beginning in 2023, when I started graduate school, both the tone and conceptual framework of my work shifted. Instead of simply recreating dream imagery, I became more interested in the unstable space where dream records and actual memories diverge, allowing new, confusing narratives to emerge.

At the same time, I sought a lighter, more immediate drawing approach, which led to the development of the Baseball Training Diary series. This allowed me to extend my interests in repetition and memory into a more physical, process-oriented dimension.

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

My creative process changes with each project. Sometimes, it begins with detailed drawings and unfolds systematically; other times, it’s intuitive, starting directly on a blank canvas. Even when I work spontaneously, I usually have a larger vision or atmosphere in mind. I prefer analog methods—sketching by hand with pencil or pen on paper. When revisions are needed, I print out photos of the work-in-progress and draw over them to rethink composition. This process involves overpainting and erasure, which I consider essential for creating depth. These unexpected, spontaneous marks help keep the painting flexible and alive.

What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?

I’d say the biggest challenges for me have been health issues and the mental weight that comes with working. I usually work on large-scale pieces, and I used to play baseball on the weekends as a hobby. That combination eventually took a toll on my shoulders, and I had to go through treatment for some time. There have also been a few minor health problems along the way, and they made me realize how important it is to take better care of my body if I want to keep working in the long run.

Creatively, I overthink a lot. I don’t easily jump straight into drawing – my process is slow and filled with reflection. That can make working both rewarding and, at times, frustrating or overwhelming. When I find myself stuck, I turn to films, documentaries, or books to refresh my thinking. I used to have a pretty narrow taste in movies – mostly horror, occult or crime genres. But lately, when I feel blocked, I intentionally seek out films that fall outside of those preferences. It helps me experience new kinds of stimulation, and often, that shift in perspective opens up unexpected possibilities in my work.

How do you manage feedback or criticism, especially in the context of public exhibitions?

I’m open to feedback, especially when it offers thoughtful, insightful perspectives. However, I believe no one knows my work better than I do. I don’t accept all feedback at face value; instead, I assess whether it aligns with my intentions. When a perspective resonates with mine, I welcome dialogue and even seek advice. For that reason, I often share work-related reflections with a small circle of trusted colleagues, and these conversations play an important role in my practice.

Text & photo courtesy of Lee Koz

Website: https://leekoz.co.kr/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ekozist/

Seeun Yu (b. 1999) is a Seoul-based painter whose practice explores the gaps, tensions, and possibilities that emerge when images encounter one another. Drawing fragments from both urban landscapes and digital environments, she reassembles them into compositions that resist fixed meaning. Her works often originate from overlooked details—cracks in façades, stains on walls, or digital remnants stripped of context—fragments that ignite imagination and invite reinterpretation.

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

I am currently based in Seoul, South Korea, and pursuing my graduate studies in Fine Arts. My practice centers on painting, with a sustained interest in the relationships between images and the new possibilities of meaning that arise from them. What began as an exploration of everyday sensory experiences has since expanded into the language of painting, developing through both research and practice.

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

What matters in my work is not that an image conveys a fixed meaning or emotion, but how the visual gaps and structural incompleteness between disparate images open the possibility of narrative. I focus less on presenting a complete story, and more on the spaces that emerge when one is withheld. By juxtaposing heterogeneous images within a single frame, I seek to create tensions and dissonances that function as openings—spaces where imagination can unfold. Ultimately, my paintings do not aim to deliver conclusions, but to generate thresholds where stories can begin to arise.

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

Lately, I have been drawn to making broader experiments in my work. While I first focused on the structural tension and narrative gaps that emerged when images collided or misaligned, I am now more interested in the physical “gaps themselves. I explore how these spaces and intervals can be visually articulated, and how structural tension can be created even without clear figurative imagery. My paintings are shifting from simply “showing images” toward revealing the ways in which images relate to one another.

Can you describe a recent project or artwork that you are particularly proud of?

Rather than something I am proud of, I would say there is a recent work I have been deeply engaged with, though it is not yet complete. From the window of my new studio in Pyeongtaek, I see the construction site of a Samsung semiconductor plant. The site is hidden behind barriers printed with Mondrian’s paintings. Having long focused my practice on surfaces stripped of their essence, it felt uncanny to see Mondrian—an artist who pursued the most essential forms—used as a screen to conceal the halted development of a new city. Each day, as I look out at this barrier from my studio, I encounter a desolate urban landscape: unfinished developments, rows of identical square buildings and windows. Between that view and my own painting process, I began reflecting on how to perceive the world in its basic units. My earlier work concentrated on editing digital images and magnifying them to the pixel level, blurring the borders between squares with small brushstrokes. More recently, I have been attempting to apply that way of seeing to my everyday surroundings—breaking down real-life landscapes into structural units, almost like pixels, and translating that perception into my painting practice.

What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?

The greatest challenges I face as an artist often come from within. Uncertainty and isolation have been the most difficult to confront, and the process of making art is always accompanied by doubt and unease. Yet over time, I have come to see this uncertainty as fundamental to my practice. By treating imperfection itself as a methodology, I am learning not to avoid tension and anxiety, but to transform them into the very force that propels my work forward.

What do you hope people take away from your art when they experience it?

I do not intend for my work to deliver a fixed message. Rather, I hope viewers create their own narratives within it. If the gaps and spaces between images evoke their own sensations and memories, and allow those to expand into new interpretations, that is more than enough.

Text & photo courtesy of Seeun Yu

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eunseyu/