LeeNa
South Korea
LeeNa (b.1986, Seoul, Korea) holds a Master’s degree in Art and Space from Kingston University in London. Her work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and art fairs across Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore. Recognized by various institutions, her pieces are part of the permanent collections of the Seongnam Cube Art Museum, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, and the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation, among others.
Her artistic practice centers around two major series: the “Fruit Tree Series” and the “Swan Pond Series.” The former draws on childhood photographs from the 1980s and ’90s. LeeNa isolates the familiar figures from their original context and reimagines them through an emotional lens—children joyfully hiding within forest scenes brimming with fruits, insects, and flowers, constructing a world devoid of adults but full of vitality.
The Swan Pond Series explores themes of identity and transformation. Inspired by the fairy tale The Wild Swans and her own lived experiences in the UK, the figures she paints exist between human and animal, nature and culture—caught in a constant state of flux. This rhythm of metamorphosis reflects the artist’s acute sensitivity to boundary experiences. LeeNa’s works are suffused with a sense of anticipation—of a story about to unfold. She captures the stillness and atmosphere of a moment before a narrative takes shape: just before a fruit falls, before a child turns back, before night fully sets in. This suspended moment is the temporal core of her creation. Between branches and glances, suppressed emotions and faint glimmers begin to slowly emerge.