About JAVIER LEON PEREZ
Originally from Seville and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts there, Javier León Pérez specialised in ceramics and sculpture before completing a research MA in art and production at the Complutense University of Madrid.
At a very young age, he was already an assistant in a sculpture workshop, where he encountered sturdy materials like bronze. Upon discovering a text about Buddhist philosophy and Zen principles, he became aware of the fragile and ephemeral nature of existence and all things. After that, this new enlightenment would inspire his artistic approach. In order to give shape to this, the artist sometimes employs painting and sometimes sculpture or installations. The key element of his work is the ambivalence between the underlying order of the universe and fluidity, between individual elements and the whole that they create together.
His pictorial works, in which he multiplies different points, evoke the idea of matter, composed of tiny indivisible particles that form a whole. They are the result of a repetitive process, a sort of daily personal ritual akin to a mantra; a sacred formula that requires intense physical and mental concentration, an exercise that involves centring oneself again and going back to one’s roots before the work is ready.
However, another material – Japanese paper known as ‘washi’ – is at the heart of his work. Javier León Pérez sublimates and models this traditional hand-made paper, which is slightly translucent and has a subtly irregular texture with a pleasant feel. Traditional production techniques are passed down from generation to generation and included on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The artist establishes an intimate and tactile relationship with this plant-fibre paper, which allows him to develop his own poetic language. By folding and cutting, multiplying small, individual units that are juxtaposed in a very precise order, calling to mind the inherent internal structures of the world, such as the petals of a flower, he creates a jumble of extremely fluid organic shapes, like roots naturally undulating in rhizomes.
The paper absorbs energy, rises in waves or forms spiral-shaped compositions, like vortices arising from two distinct dynamics: one static, the other in rotation. The artist is inspired by nature – its shapes and its rhythms – without copying it.
About LEE-BAUWENS Gallery
As a meeting point between Asia and Europe, Lee-Bauwens has been introducing and connecting the two cultures in the art scene by representing influential artists from both worlds. Prominent Korean artists such as Chun Kwang Young, Nam Tchun-Mo, Kim Hyun-Sik, Moon-Pil Shim and Meekyoung Shin were introduced to the Belgian public for the first time, and talented emerging artists such as Jiana Kim, Sunghong Min and Jukhee Kwon were discovered and nurtured in their growth. Likewise, the works of Aurelie Nemours, Ode Bertrand, Maurice Frydman, Paola Pezzi, Javier León Pérez, Esther Stocker and Lucas Leffler were introduced in Korea through various exhibition programs.
Having worked as a curator at the Asia Museum in Korea, Min Young Lee works closely with art institutions and museums. In 2022, Min Young Lee coordinate with the curators Yongwoo Lee, Manuela Luca-Dazio and Boghossian Fondation for, Times Reimagined, Solo Show of Chun Kwang Young as a Collateral Event of 59th Venice Biennale.
In an ongoing effort to bring the two worlds closer, in 2019, Min Young Lee-Bauwens collaborated at the seminal exhibition Brussels in SongEun: Imagining Cities Beyond Technology 2.0 to commemorate the official visit of the King of Belgium to Korea. And the gallery also partnered in holding René Magritte, The Revealing Image, Photos & Films exhibition at two different Korean museums (Ground & Wooyang).
Lee-Bauwens Gallery hopes to always be an open and intimate space where artists, collectors, and institutions may communicate freely sharing what touches them most deeply today in contemporary art, reflecting on what has happened, and experimenting on what’s to come.