Two Abstract Voices Meet: Ethel Adnan and Lee Seung-ja in Seoul
Creatrip Team
a month ago
White Cube Seoul in Sinsa, Gangnam is presenting a two-person exhibition, “Meeting the Sun,” pairing Lebanese-born artist Ethel Adnan (1925–2021) and first-generation Korean-French abstract painter Lee Seung-ja (이성자, 1918–2009). The gallery introduces Adnan to Korea for the first time and selected Lee as a resonant Korean counterpart: both were outsiders active in the Paris art scene, moved toward ultimate abstraction, and shared philosophical, cosmic concerns. The exhibition title references a 1968 poem by Adnan mourning the first astronaut’s death, linking to Lee’s long engagement with cosmic themes. In their work, celestial motifs recur—Adnan often repeats suns, moons, and the silhouette of Mount Tamalpais, while Lee arranges geometric structures evoking planets and the earth. Adnan’s path led from philosophy at the Sorbonne to painting in California, then exile from Beirut to Paris, where she transformed rupture and memory into a restrained abstract language. Lee, who studied in Japan during the colonial period and moved to France in 1951, developed a layered, textured abstraction that condensed memories of home and maternal feeling; after a successful 1965 return exhibition in Korea she increasingly embraced cosmic motifs. The show runs through March 7.
