At Saatchi Yates, Sujin Lee’s figures are frozen in introspection

‘Rather than trying to avoid situations in which something difficult might happen, I became interested in what happens immediately afterwards: how do I respond to what has already happened?’ asks Korean artist Sujin Lee. ‘That was something I kept thinking about while making these paintings. I haven’t found a solution. For now, I’m simply learning to endure it.’

It is the silence that lingers after an event has passed that forms the cornerstone of Lee’s current exhibition at London’s Saatchi Yates, ‘Where We Once Stood’. In a series of 15 new paintings, Lee considers this quietness, a feeling that takes the shape of a single girl frozen in uncertainty.

‘Whenever I grow and look more closely at myself, my girls seem to grow with me,’ says Lee. ‘They also change as I observe the people around me – what they feel, how they grow, or sometimes how they remain unable to grow. I’m not sure I can really say that they have “grown up”. There is still a great deal of confusion in them. I often think about the girl, or boy, from childhood that exists within all of us, and whether we ever truly let that child go, or whether some part of them always remains.’

For Lee, who was born in Jeju Island, South Korea, and is now based in Seoul, childhood plays a crucial part in shaping identity. ‘I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, so there was never really a moment when I thought, “I’m interested in art, so I’m going to start drawing,”’ she says. ‘From a very young age, I think I simply had this vague sense that I would be drawing for the rest of my life.’

The solitary practice of the act lends itself well to Lee’s introspective nature. She has learnt to look into herself for answers, she says, in an attempt not to be led by others. The natural consequences of this grounding, and a reluctance to be affected by others, are that the figures in her paintings are often alone. Caught in nature, in snowstorms or picturesque landscapes, the girls themselves are a still fixed point, their expressions empty, unreadable.

‘I look at the feelings that remain inside me even when I no longer know exactly why they are there. Feelings that have already passed, no matter how intense they once were, have passed. But the things that remain inside me can stay for a very long time,’ she says. ‘I know that if I simply leave them untouched, they can overwhelm me. So I keep painting in order to face them rather than allow that to happen. At first, confronting them was extremely painful. Now, I’m quite a bit better at it. Maybe that means I’ve grown a little.’

Sujin Lee at Saatchi Yates until 12 November 2026

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