The sculptural work of Korean artist Dongwook Lee is disturbing yet curious on multiple levels. Lee most often sculpts the nude human body. However, it’s executed with a certain grotesqueness and on a small scale. The sculptures’ diminutive size encourages viewers to look at the bodies as things or objects, as if they were insects. However, this stands in contrast to a natural empathy we have with the human form we share that lends the art a distressing atmosphere. Lee’s work identifies and exploits a general uneasiness many have with the physical body, the carnal, and the fleshly – a hyper-awareness of the body and its delicate nature.
