A Perfect Match
November 01, 2011Harper's Bazaar Interiors
On the walls hang original artworks from Art Projects International, which deals in contemporary Asian artists. Two pieces hanging in the living room and kitchen are by South Korean-born artist Il Lee. "His work is now being recognized worldwide with installations in… Read More 
Conversation with IL LEE
August 03, 2011Asia Art Archive in America
A dialogue about the work and experiences of Il Lee with Jane DeBevoise (Chair, Asia Art Archive), Jung Lee Sanders (Director, Art Projects International) and Ali Van (AAA-A Project Coordinator) on the occasion of the exhibition Representation/Abstraction in Korean Art… Read More
IL LEE – Eye On Alumni
November 10, 2010Gateway (Pratt Institute, New York)
When The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens its newly installed Arts of Korea Gallery this month, it will showcase two works by Il Lee (M.F.A. ’82), a Korean-born, New York-based artist best known for creating innovative works both on paper and canvas using ballpoint… Read More
Top Summer Shows You Can Still Catch, North and South - IL Lee
September 08, 2010The Huffington Post
This week we jump from the north to the south in the western states outside of California to pinpoint the top shows that will carry over from the summer season. With Labor Day past, this coming weekend opens the new season with a plethora of new shows.... Read More
Il Lee’s Large Ballpoint Pen Drawings Harness a Powerful Quiet
June 07, 2010D Magazine
Calm and frenzy lay down together in the remarkable little show of big work New Vision: Ballpoint Drawings by Il Lee at the Crow Collection through September 26. Lee makes huge abstract drawings by scribbling with a ballpoint pen until paper or canvas is coated with… Read More
Contrapuntal Infinitudes: Il Lee at Art Projects International
June 01, 2010artcritical
For some 30 years Il Lee has exclusively used, and abused, ballpoint pens, surely by now many tens of thousands of them, to make extraordinary drawings. A satisfying survey of his works on paper from the past 10 years (he also draws on canvas) is currently on view at… Read More
IL LEE: Small Works 2001-2010 at Art Projects International
March 30, 2010The Drawing Center News, The Bottom Line
Currently on display is a brilliant selection of ballpoint pen drawings by artist Il Lee (b. 1952, Korea) created from 2001-2010. Lee has been creating ballpoint pen drawings for over 30 years, and they continue to dazzle. Black, and in more recent works, blue and red… Read More
IL LEE Ballpoint Drawings at the Queens Museum of Art
September 07, 2007The New York Times
A selection of drawings — striking indigo and black ink abstractions, all done exclusively in ballpoint pen, on paper and canvas — makes up this engrossing show by the veteran Korean artist Il Lee. The centerpiece is a 50-foot drawing that took two and a half months… Read More
A Few Good Pens - IL LEE
September 01, 2007ARTnews
For a quarter century, the South Korean-born artist has been coaxing massive webs of line from disposable ballpoint pens.... For his solo show "Ballpoint Drawings," on view at the Queens Museum of Art through the 30th of this month, Lee created his largest work yet:… Read More
To See the World in Ballpoint Pen - IL LEE
August 10, 2007The New York Times
What makes this work, and others like it, so alluring is its unexpected suggestiveness. When Mr. Lee's drawings conjure before you a soft, densely inked snowflakelike blob with feathery edges, or a pattern that recalls a distant constellation, or foliage, or even… Read More
IL Lee - Queens Museum of Art
August 07, 2007The New Yorker
“Il Lee.” Hundreds of thousands of disposable ballpoint pens have passed through the Korean-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s hands over the years, and he’s mastered his medium. He knows how the ink will warm to produce a free-flowing line; he’s learned how to build up… Read More
Il Lee: Ballpoint Drawings - Queens Museum of Art
July 26, 2007Time Out New York
For the past several decades, the Korean-born artist has been fusing minimalist aesthetics and traditional Asian painting techniques into a series of sublime, black-and-blue abstractions. Most works... Read More
IL LEE: Ballpoint Drawings at Queens Museum of Art
July 19, 2007artnet
Large-format blue and black ink drawings, including a 50-foot installation by the Korean-born, Brooklyn-based artist Read More
IL LEE: Ballpoint Abstractions at San Jose Museum of Art
July 07, 2007San Francisco Chronicle
I wish I had seen sooner the stirring show of abstractions by Korean-born New York artist Il Lee at the San Jose Museum of Art. It ends Sunday. More than 20 years ago Lee, now in his mid 50s, began working with one of the few marking tools underrepresented in… Read More
Whirls Enough And Time, IL LEE does wonders with a humble ballpoint pen
April 12, 2007metroactive.com
Artist IL Lee doesn't need sable-hair brushes and hand-ground pigments. The Korean-born artist, who has lived and worked in New York since 1977, chose another path in 1981, when he began to draw exclusively with the humble ballpoint pen—and not just any ballpoint, but… Read More
Beauty in Ballpoint: Distinctive Doodles by Il Lee
April 01, 2007San Jose Mercury News
Lee has played with lines like a composer noodling away on a piano. After more than 20 years of such playing, he has expanded to complex symphonies of powerful visual notes: "BL-060" (2005) is nearly room-sized, spreading across a 7-by-12-foot canvas. His lines shout… Read More
IL LEE: Ballpoint Abstractions (text from catalogue)
February 27, 2007IL LEE: Ballpoint Abstractions
The expressive inky line remains, but Lee’s use of ballpoint pen gives his art a freshness and originality that satisfies the avant-garde craving for the new. In Lee’s hand, line achieves tremendous power and a range of moods and “personalities.” At times it is… Read More
IL Lee, Chun Kwang-Young and Lee Ufan: International Abstraction, Generational Trajectories
December 01, 2006Art AsiaPacific
Using the dark black and indigo inks of ballpoint pens, Il Lee builds up monumental form through repeated working over a particular space, with the edges of his images diffused and loosened by random curling lines. The results, which take on a performative aspect given… Read More
IL Lee at Art Projects International
October 01, 2006Art in America
There is an almost palpable liquidity in the dense, indigo heart of Il Lee’s recent production. Using common ballpoint pens, he locates a point or describes an arc or line on his paper or canvas support. The ink becomes increasingly fluid with the heat of his hand as… Read More
Just what is it that makes Il Lee’s art so different, so appealing?
April 01, 2006Art in Culture
Lee's work can be approached from many directions. The inventiveness of the work suggests the avant-gardes of modernism while its refinement brings to mind a classical approach. Grand themes are developed with assuredness, while details are at once supporting arguments… Read More
IL LEE: Beyond the Minimal
April 01, 2006Art In Culture
Il Lee’s work also radiates a certain spirituality filtered through minimalist non-objectivity. In the pulse of its forms, it’s, chi perhaps, it seems to breathe with the breath it took to make it while the endless markings, both visible and scribbled over, trace and… Read More
IL Lee at Art Projects International
October 22, 2004Art AsiaPacific
A product of both Western and Asian cultures, Il Lee's remarkable series of ballpoint pen drawings quote both the theoretical and physical reductiveness of minimalism and the understated lyricism of classical Asian culture. Read More
Marking: Drawings by Contemporary Artists from Korea
March 01, 2004Art AsiaPacific
The exhibition Marking: Drawings by Contemporary Artists from Korea is reviewed in Art AsiaPacific. Read More
All about the Delicacy and Energy of the Line - IL Lee
November 23, 2003The New York Times
For pure linear intensity, IL Lee's drawings cannot be bettered. They demonstrate how pen and ink can be used to build complex forms that seem held together by some sort of adhesive energy. But around the edges, the line breaks away from the gravitational force that… Read More
IL Lee - Line and Form: Drawings 1984-1996
April 01, 1997Space (Seoul)
At first glance–in looking at the exhibition of Il Lee's drawings at Art Projects International (API) in New York City–Il Lee's drawings are attractive minimalist works–black ink on paper. After some close observation, or perhaps after reading a press release or… Read More
IL Lee at Art Projects International
February 01, 1997Review
Captivated by the announcement card, I went down for a preview. Though the drawings are mostly recent, one initiating work from 1984 is included--a startling row of five black, hairy-looking ovals which seem so physical you'd swear they were removable. Read More
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