FRUIT

Artist Diren Lee paints the animals with human eyes. Each eye looks sometimes lonely, sad, an even has some inner wounds and stories. In her paintings, Lee describes her inner wounds and fears as the subject of equating each other’s pain by projecting them into endangered animals.


“I express the eyes of an animal in a painting as that of a person. Through this, I wanted to empathize with their fears, and to say that their crisis is our’s.”

- Diren Lee Aristt Note -


She painted “Tattoo series” before “Animals”. she expressed her pains and fears by recording and engraving her inner wounds through tattoos that sometimes look like wounds. The animal-mixed series started with ”The story of the others“, which seems to be the same as other people’s pain and gaze, and the story of sharing and healing the heart of the wound is a theme that penetrates her work.”Fruits series“, the new works in 2019, are the new set of works that are newly seen through Art Fairs and Exhibitions. Fruits means the result of long hours of love and external threats.

All the works is painted on canvas with a slender brush, and it creates the hair and eyes of a living animal. Each process means we are all living creatures that can interat with emotions. We are all supposed to live together, and we are capable of holding each other’s wounds.

Artist Diren Lee (b.1983) graduated from Hongik University. She developed and designed the Asia’s beloved cat character <Choo Choo>. She now paints <Tattoo>, <Dream>, and <Animal> series features a detailed painting. Lee is now expanding her world view by combining dreams, reality, animals and humans into a single story. Her works were featured in <SAMSUNG laptop> global commercials, and Seoul Fashion Week Events, etc., and in a variety of areas.