technology to exceed the current vision and era. Lee Lee-Nam believes that video art could express imaginations more thoroughly, and passes on more atmosphere and surprises by acting variations. He uses Zheng Ban-Chao’s Chinese traditional painting to portray the natural changes of spring, summer, autumn and winder. You will see the sparse bamboo shadow shakes lightly in the breeze, then snowflakes fall and cover the leafs and even the words of poem.? Classic ink bamboos are given a vivid and graceful new life. On the beautiful tableau of “Mona Lisa”, Lee Lee-Nam adds the background of war, parachutes, combat plane and bombs. Within the destroyed and smoky battlefield, Mona Lisa can only turn her astonished eyes following the airplane; behind the mysterious smile there hides her puzzle and worry to the future world of fifty years later. No need to describe with words; pink petals fall and fly, turn into flower rain as a beautiful dream. Elegant flying butterflies on the painting of flowers and birds, and the oriole jumping between flower shrubs after rain, animate the still screen into a vivid nature. By the video technology which melds three dimensions, Lee Lee-Nam builds a simulant virtual world which swings between the reality and mirage.

Today,” pure moving image arts” can no longer satisfy Lee; what he wants is to re-present masterpieces in a more free and novel way. During this process, different images that he drew are put together in an overlapping manner. In “Conversation between Monet and Sochee”, Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise” and Korean master painter Sochee’s landscape painting were juxtaposed. The boats in the originals now can float freely between the two monitors. What is different about this piece is that Lee actively added more of his own 3D animation, therefore the light reflection of sunshine and sunset, changes of four seasons, Shanghai and Hong Kong’s dreamy night scenery, were represented incredibaly. In the new artwork “Circulation – Nature – Human”, available masterpieces can no longer reach Lee Lee Nam’s request of immense space. He now uses his own creation of water-ink painting, floating clouds and combat airplane in the sky, warships and submarines on the ocean, and flourish prosperous earth extending along the mountain valley. Beauty and crisis coexist in this heaven and mortal world. If we compare Lee’s previous works as straight wringing essays, then this new piece will be a modern poem filled with metaphors and meditation that really make us think deeper.

Korean celebrated art critic and curator Sunhee Kim said “Lee Lee Nam’s works remind me of a Greek mythology, “Pygmalion”, a story about Pygmalion, a sculptor who refuses to get married because he is in love with his own sculpture. Finally he turned to Venus, the Goddess of Love, who turns the sculpture into a young and beautiful lady. And they live happily ever after. In reality, Lee Lee Nam’s works do not only target on producing “moving” paintings. With the advancement of scientific technology and digital imaging, the line between “reality” and “illusion” is getting even thinner and it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the “real” from “virtual” in our living world. Lee chooses to pick eastern and western masterpieces as the objects of his digital image creation. He does not treat these masterpieces as over-the-top artistic works, but as objects. The charm the originals used to bring to people has gradually faded away. Hung in the museums, these paintings witnessed themselves going from “classic” to “mediocre.” “Masterpieces” is nothing more than a concept, as the line between “original” and “duplication” becomes so fine. Even the frame, necessary to any painting, can now be classy and tacky at the same time.