24 Jul Under the Fruit Trees — LeeNa’s Solo Exhibition

“What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.” 

— Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse 

In the works of Korean artist LeeNa, those matchstick-like glimmers may be hidden in a child’s gaze or the breath shared between leaves and fruit. She portrays delicate yet genuine sensations—the slant of light falling on a leaf, a child bending close to the water’s surface, or a fragment of childhood deeply rooted in memory.

This exhibition showcases two of her ongoing series: the “Fruit Tree Series” and the “Swan Pond Series.” These bodies of work reflect two central threads in her practice: one is the reconstruction of childhood rooted in personal memory, and the other is a contemplation of fluid and transformative identities.

In the Fruit Tree Series, LeeNa begins with childhood photographs from the 1980s and ’90s. Gazing into these blurred yet familiar figures, she extracts them from their original context and places them within an imagined and emotional realm. In these scenes, children hide among towering fruit trees, where fruits, insects, animals, and flowers coexist in an unnamed time and place—absent of adults, filled only with tender vitality and pure observation.

The Swan Pond Series, by contrast, extends into themes of identity and transformation. The swans in her paintings are inspired both by the fairy tale The Wild Swans and by her real-life encounters with swans during her studies in the UK. Her painted beings exist in a liminal space—between human and animal, nature and culture—caught in a perpetual state of metamorphosis. By day, they become swans; by night, they return to human form. This rhythm of transformation reflects LeeNa’s acute sensitivity to the experience of boundaries.

Her imagery is suffused with a sense of “the moment before a story unfolds.” Through meticulously detailed brushwork, she renders feathers, water surfaces, and the textures of plants, capturing the stillness and scent of a narrative not yet told—the moment before a fruit falls, before a child turns their head, before night fully descends. This is the temporal core of her art. In the space between foliage and gaze, subdued emotions and quiet glimmers slowly emerge.

—
Under the Fruit Trees — LeeNa’s Solo Exhibition
Period｜2025.08.16- 2025.10.11
Opening reception｜2025.08.16 15:00 The artist will be present at the event to interact with the guests
Venue｜1F., No. 222, Shidong Rd., Shilin Dist., Taipei
Tel｜+886-2-28310558