Bamboo and landscapes

The pen name that Lee Ungno used before “Goam” (顧菴, to become an artist as accomplished as Gu Kaizhi) was “Juksa” (竹士, given by Kim Gyu-jin for his skills in portraying bamboo and quick learning that resembles bamboo’s ability to quickly absorb water). This suggests that the time when he changed his pen name was around when he turned himself from an ordinary person into an artist. Wind Bamboos, which Lee Ungno was inspired to paint after seeing a bamboo forest shaking in wind and rain, received a special mention at the 10th Joseon Art Exhibition in 1931. This award motivated him to continue his artistic endeavors, and he went on to produce bamboo paintings for the rest of his life. It is due to their foundational role that Lee Ungno’s bamboo paintings remain significant today.

The Travels of Marco Polo series, together with the bamboo paintings, are reborn as new landscapes in the media art. In 1980, Lee Ungno was asked by the author of a book on the original The Travels of Marco Polo to draw illustrations for the book and left 79 landscape paintings in the spirit of the famous travelogue. Lee Ungno created the paintings based not on his own reading of the book but rather on what he had heard from others about the book. The series of the artworks, which embodies his unique interpretation of the book, expresses the intersection of East and West with his own mystical shapes and colors. Experience the bamboo paintings and the landscapes, recreated by the media.