4 - 19 October
CYLINDER is pleased to present Eunsil Lee's solo exhibition Treachery Skin, which explores the psychological interplay arising when suppressed desires clash with societal norms. Employing architectural structures and perspective of Korean paintings, Lee contrasts these desires with conflicts that permeate human existence. Torpor, sorrow, and despair bare their tender flesh in moments of exposed vulnerability—an image akin to an unfinished building. Lee focuses on these moments to scrutinise dismantled human nerves and unstable psychological states from varied angles and with meticulous precision.
Nerves, the conduit for all interactions within Lee's work, transform into sinuous serpents symbolising writhing human desire, then into a wrinkly human brain, evoking a sensation of something crawling in one's head. The dark green nylon stretched over the supporting panel echoes the ambivalent human desire to both conceal and reveal. Fuzz on the layers of Korean paper meld with Lee’s subjects and add pulsating tension against the taut nylon.
In the dim pre-dawn hours, at a time suggestive of an impending event, the snakes elusively wriggling low across the ground and weaving between screens, with a series of scenes depicted on their skins, prompt observers to question whether they are depictions of a conceivable reality or illusions conjured up by the mind. As if concealing something, they disappear swiftly into the illusion, stirring the depth of one's sensual imagination.