Night Dreamer

About the exhibition

The upcoming exhibition, Night Dreamer, marks Sojeong Lee’s first solo exhibition in Korea. Hosted at DIA Contemporary in Samcheong-dong from November 14 to December 21, it celebrates the work of Lee, an artist based in Düsseldorf and recognized across Europe. This exhibition will introduce her distinctive artistic world to a Korean audience, marking the beginning of her engagement with the Korean art scene. Lee’s works explore the unconscious and dreams through human figures, capturing the depths of emotion in her delicately composed paintings. Through narrative-based imagery, she unveils the complex emotions and experiences residing within, presenting pieces that blend personal memory with emotion. Her paintings use the acts of dreaming and introspection to delve into universal feelings of happiness, anxiety, solitude, and alienation. The figures in her paintings often reflect herself, represented through a magical realism that exists at the crossroads of dream and reality. Surreal elements intertwine with the figures, creating familiar yet uncanny scenes that provoke a sense of wonder. The exhibition title, Night Dreamer, metaphorically reflects her creative process. Lee weaves fragments of memories and scenes from her dreams with her imagination, crafting uniquely evocative images. Her characters’ large eyes, striking expressions, and dreamlike backgrounds draw from childhood experiences and comic art, conveying genuine emotion and tension. These elements go beyond mere depictions of nightmares, touching on the polarized emotions inherent to human experience, encapsulating both inner anxieties and hope. Motifs like paper airplanes and raincoats in her works serve as symbolic vessels for memory and emotion. These elements embody a sense of safety and beauty, symbolically bridging reality and imagination. Through her work, viewers embark on a journey into the dreamer’s night flight, exploring their own inner worlds and encountering a visual path that transcends reality. As the inaugural exhibition for DIA Contemporary’s new Samcheong-dong space, Night Dreamer will offer art enthusiasts a sensory exploration of contemporary emotion and thought, inspiring both domestic and international audiences alike.