Yunsung Lee (b.1985, South Korea) constructs a distinctive painterly language by hybridizing the visual grammar of manga and anime of Japanese popular culture rooted in his youth with Western sculptural traditions and Greco-Roman mythology (Laocoön, Danaë, Venus, among others).

By actively incorporating the expressive grammar of Japanese comics as compositional elements in his paintings, Lee intersects subculture and mainstream art-history. Manga “panels” are translated into diagonally cut canvases or figures fragmented through optical illusion, while empty speech bubbles function as abstract devices that suggest new narrative potential. Central to his practice are figures modeled after the sculptural form of the “Torso”—bodies with missing limbs—which emerge as recurring formal motifs. These fragmented figures, combined with vivid color, decorative patterning, and dense compositional layering, generate scenes both visually charged and layered.

Overlaying disparate characteristics of classical and modern, Eastern and Western, and tactile brushworks of oil painting and flatness of animation, Lee pulls images and values of Western art’s vast history into the present and explores new perspectives of sensorial perception and contemplation.

Lee studied Western Painting at Chung-Ang University and expanded his international practice through the Doosan Residency programs in Seoul (2014) and New York (2016). He has held eleven solo exhibitions, including at Doosan Gallery Seoul (2015), Doosan Gallery New York (2016,) Museum Wave (2024), and YK Presents (2020, 2024), and has participated in over thirty group exhibitions in Korea and abroad, including at Space K Daegu (2017), Schema Museum of Art (2023), Space Hohwa (2023), Ananti Culture Club (2023), and Tuesday to Friday, Barcelona (2023). His works are held in institutional collections including Doosan Art Center and Space K. A solo exhibition at ROY Gallery is scheduled for 2026.