Hanjin Group’s Ilwoo Foundation is proud to present Sungmi Lee’s solo exhibition, Marks from the Past, on view from May 1 to May 31, 2026. Curated by independent curator Jee Young Maeng, the exhibition will take place at Ilwoo Space, located in the lobby of the Korean Air Building in Seosomun Jung-gu, Seoul. Over the past 20 years, Lee has split her time between the United States and Korea, working across both two-dimensional forms (such as drawing, painting, and photography) and three-dimensional installations. Starting with her early work Untitled #600 (2006), created with incense soot during her time in the U.S., this exhibition highlights the artist's creative journey, featuring photography and installations previously unseen in Korea alongside her recent drawings on wood panels.

Marks from the Past is an approach to provide a multi-dimensional look at Lee’s artistic world, which, since her return to Korea in 2011, has primarily been introduced through her work with broken glass shards. The exhibition presents Untitled #600, an early work which was featured 20 years ago in the 2006 show Bearable Lightness . . . Likeness at MoMA PS1, as a point of entry. The piece allows us to observe how Lee’s attitude toward material properties—such as incense soot, which she attempts to control but remains inherently uncontrollable—has consistently unfolded through the various materials she has experimented with. Her work is the result of painstakingly dense hours spent in the studio and the fruition of aesthetic experiments that unravel the dual nature of life. Viewers will encounter the artist's time projected within her work as they slowly observe the processes of change—cracking, breaking, vanishing, and emerging.