TETTO_ X LEE JI HYUN
As a collaboration product between young artists and TETTO, it is an item that covers individuality and unique works.
All of TETTO's products are created in collaboration with artists. Each product is produced only in a small amount edition. Therefore, except for edition production, No more crafting.
Artist statement
My work begins with human desire. Throughout our lives, we continually want something, possess it, and then find ourselves searching for something else. As times change, so do the forms of our desires. Today, surrounded by an abundance of information and choices, what we desire has become increasingly diverse and complex.
I do not necessarily see desire as a form of lack. Because it is never fully satisfied, it allows us to dream of something else, opening up new possibilities for imagination and connection. As I work, I often find myself looking beyond what I desire and wondering where that desire comes from. There, I encounter old memories and emotions, along with parts of myself I had almost forgotten.
Following those memories often leads me naturally back to childhood. The characters and toys I loved, and familiar images from popular culture, remain somewhere within me even after many years. Sometimes, encountering a single familiar image can suddenly bring back a forgotten time and the emotions attached to it.
This is what drew me to the playful space between childhood and adulthood—what is often called "kidult" play. For me, it is neither an escape from reality nor a desire to return to the past. Rather, it is a moment when my adult self encounters the child who still remains within me—a way of rediscovering a sense of innocence and the freedom to imagine.
Collecting is also an important part of my work. It may begin with the desire to possess something, but looking back, I realize that I have collected not only objects, but also the time and emotions held within them.
This is why cartoon characters, toys, and images from popular and consumer culture appear naturally in my paintings. Familiar figures such as Astro Boy and Mickey Mouse are more than recognizable images to me. They become markers of memory, evoking childhood and the shared experience of having lived through a particular time.
In my paintings, I repeat, juxtapose, and layer these images. Some remain vivid, while others fade. Memory works in much the same way. What seemed forgotten may suddenly return, and even the same memory can change depending on how we see it from the present. The figures in my paintings carry traces of my own memories, while also becoming mirrors through which viewers may encounter their own.
To recall the past is not to return to it. Once the past is seen again through the eyes of the present, it has already become something new. It is at this point that I create Retropia, an imagined space where Retro and Utopia coexist. Images from different times meet there, allowing past and present, child and adult, desire and memory to overlap within a single pictorial space.
This way of thinking is closely connected to the way I paint.
I work on silk, applying color, waiting, and then building another layer. As pigments gradually accumulate on the translucent surface, traces of earlier colors and images never completely disappear. They remain beneath the layers that follow.
I am drawn to this process. A painting cannot be completed all at once. I have to wait, return, and apply color again. Building the surface layer by layer feels to me less like a technique than an act of accumulating time. Just as our memories are made of countless layers of time, my paintings take form through the accumulation of color, image, and time.
This is also why I find it fascinating to paint the rapidly produced and consumed images of contemporary culture through the slow process of traditional Korean color painting. I want the slow time of painting and the fast-moving time of contemporary images to coexist on the same surface.
We are always moving quickly toward something new. When I paint, I try to slow that movement for a moment. I return to memories, encounter familiar images anew, and gradually build color and time upon them.
For me, painting is a search for slow happiness within the accelerating pace of everyday life.
I hope the images in my paintings can awaken an old memory in someone and allow them, even briefly, to step outside the speed of the present and encounter the sense of innocence that still remains within.
Ultimately, I hope my paintings offer not a retreat into the past, but a small utopia where memories allow us to see ourselves anew in the present and imagine the possibility of happiness ahead.
ABOUT_ LEE JI HYUN
Education
2023 Ph.D. in Painting (Korean Painting), Graduate School of Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
2016 M.F.A. in Painting (Jinchae-Traditional Korean Color Painting), Graduate School of Hansung University, Seoul, Korea
1996 B.F.A. in Oriental Painting, Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENT
Adjunct Professor, Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
solo exhibition
2025 KIDULT UTOPIA, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
2025 RETROPIA, Gallery Arioso, Ulsan, Korea
2024 FOREVER YOUNG, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
2023 Childlike Innocence, Our Utopia, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
2023 Seeing the Essence of Joy: Bon (本), Ahn Sang Chul Museum, Yangju, Korea
2022 AMUSE, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2022 Comfort of Childlike Innocence, Restoration of Purity, Dongduk Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2022 Meeting the Child Within Again, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2021 OUR HERO, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2021 Ruminating Memories, Reflecting on Essence, Dongduk Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Invitation to Retropia, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2020 SIGNS OF THE MIND, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2019 MONTAGE, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2011 TIMELESS BEAUTY KOREA, Holy Family Gallery, Seoul, Korea
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS & ART FAIRS
2026 Kiaf SEOUL, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
Unrepeated Korean Painting: Rewriting 'Character is Painting', Maru Art Center, Seoul, Korea
Galleries Art Fair in Suwon, Suwon Convention Center, Gallery Mare, Suwon, Korea
Traces Left, Gazes Connected, Dongduk Women’s University Museum, Seoul, Korea
ART BUSAN, BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
Blooming Mind (Two-Person Exhibition: Lee Ji Hyun & Emily Young), Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
Galleries Art Fair, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
2025 GEEK ZONE 2025 (괴짜전), K-Contemporary Art Museum (KMCA), Seoul, Korea
Hotel Art Show in Lotte Hotel Ulsan, Gallery Arioso, Ulsan, Korea
Secular and Free, H-flux Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Re, Meeting the Magic Again, Hyundai Department Store Ulsan, Gallery Arioso, Ulsan, Korea
The Self Within, Imagining Words of Dreams (Two-Person Exhibition: Lee Ji Hyun & Kim Sook-kyung), Ahn Sang Chul Museum, Yangju, Korea
Galleries Art Fair, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
2024 Diaf (Daegu International Art Fair), EXCO, Gallery Mare, Daegu, Korea
Tradition and Variation of Korean Painting: A Double-Edged Sword, Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Seoul, Korea
DOSI NFT Project, ARTE K x K Auction, Seoul, Korea
ART BUSAN, BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
BAMA (Busan Annual Market of Art), BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
Galleries Art Fair, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
Korea-Japan International Exchange Exhibition: When Poetry Becomes Painting (詩が絵になる時), Korean Cultural Center, Osaka, Japan
2023 Diaf (Daegu International Art Fair), EXCO, Gallery Mare, Daegu, Korea
Between Genres and Boundaries: Formative Phenomena and Direction of Contemporary Korean Painting,
Kiaf SEOUL, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
ART BUSAN, BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
Galleries Art Fair, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
OH! HAPPY DAY, The Hyundai Pangyo, Gallery Iam, Seongnam, Korea
BAMA (Busan Annual Market of Art), BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
2022 mM ART : Present, mM Artgallery, Pyeongtaek, Korea
Christmas Gift Exhibition, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
Diaf (Daegu International Art Fair), EXCO, Gallery Mare, Daegu, Korea
New Horizons for Art's Sake, LG OLED ART x Lisson Gallery x Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
A&C ART FESTIVAL 2022, Art & Critic, Seoul, Korea
Taste Your Own Taste, Gallery BK x Shinsegae Centum City, Busan, Korea
Daegu Hotel Fair, Hotel Inter-Burgo, mM Artgallery, Daegu, Korea
Bear Story, Woori House Gallery KT / Partron.digital, Seoul, Korea
Beyond Horizon: NFT Exhibition, Gallery BK x Crypto.com, Seoul, Korea
Ulsan International Art Fair (UiAF), Olivia Park Gallery, Ulsan, Korea
Art Fair Daegu, Olivia Park Gallery, Daegu, Korea
Flea Ground, KT&G Sangsangmadang Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Thirsty Enthusiasm by Art Workers, Gallery BK, Seoul, Korea
2021 Art Auction & Donation, Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas, Seoul, Korea
Hello, Geeks, Flea, Seoul, Korea
Side by Side, Polestarart Art Festival, Starfield Goyang, Goyang, Korea
2020 PLAS Contemporary Art Show, COEX Convention & Exhibition Center, Seoul, Korea
TRiCERA ART Featured Artist, Tokyo, Japan
YES/NO/LIKE/DISLIKE/LOVE/HATE/REPLY/SHARE: The Portrait of Korean Pop Culture
2000–2020, Superellipse Publishing Project, Seoul, Korea
K Auction Premium Online Auction, Seoul, Korea
PUBLICATIONS & RESEARCH
2023 A Study on the Formative Expression of Kidultism
(Ph.D. Dissertation, Graduate School of Dongduk Women’s University)
2023 Pictorial Expression and Scalability of Kidultism
(The Society of East-West Art and Culture)
PRODUCT INFO
Hero 54_2026
113.0 x78.8m
Nature Pigment, Silk, Mixed Material
고객센터
+82 10-4767-8610 / attettol@gmail.com
CS: 평일 AM 9:00 - PM 6:00 (Lunch PM 1:00 - PM 2:00 / 주말 및 공휴일 휴무)
Business Name 앤드보리나(Andborina) | CEO 위희정 Wee Hee Jung
Business License 268-19-01378 | Communication Sales Business Report 2020-서울강남-01482
Address 강남구 언주로30길10, 현대비젼 923호 / 10, Eonju-ro 30-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
TETTO_ X LEE JI HYUN
As a collaboration product between young artists and TETTO, it is an item that covers individuality and unique works.
All of TETTO's products are created in collaboration with artists. Each product is produced only in a small amount edition. Therefore, except for edition production, No more crafting.
Artist statement
My work begins with human desire. Throughout our lives, we continually want something, possess it, and then find ourselves searching for something else. As times change, so do the forms of our desires. Today, surrounded by an abundance of information and choices, what we desire has become increasingly diverse and complex.
I do not necessarily see desire as a form of lack. Because it is never fully satisfied, it allows us to dream of something else, opening up new possibilities for imagination and connection. As I work, I often find myself looking beyond what I desire and wondering where that desire comes from. There, I encounter old memories and emotions, along with parts of myself I had almost forgotten.
Following those memories often leads me naturally back to childhood. The characters and toys I loved, and familiar images from popular culture, remain somewhere within me even after many years. Sometimes, encountering a single familiar image can suddenly bring back a forgotten time and the emotions attached to it.
This is what drew me to the playful space between childhood and adulthood—what is often called "kidult" play. For me, it is neither an escape from reality nor a desire to return to the past. Rather, it is a moment when my adult self encounters the child who still remains within me—a way of rediscovering a sense of innocence and the freedom to imagine.
Collecting is also an important part of my work. It may begin with the desire to possess something, but looking back, I realize that I have collected not only objects, but also the time and emotions held within them.
This is why cartoon characters, toys, and images from popular and consumer culture appear naturally in my paintings. Familiar figures such as Astro Boy and Mickey Mouse are more than recognizable images to me. They become markers of memory, evoking childhood and the shared experience of having lived through a particular time.
In my paintings, I repeat, juxtapose, and layer these images. Some remain vivid, while others fade. Memory works in much the same way. What seemed forgotten may suddenly return, and even the same memory can change depending on how we see it from the present. The figures in my paintings carry traces of my own memories, while also becoming mirrors through which viewers may encounter their own.
To recall the past is not to return to it. Once the past is seen again through the eyes of the present, it has already become something new. It is at this point that I create Retropia, an imagined space where Retro and Utopia coexist. Images from different times meet there, allowing past and present, child and adult, desire and memory to overlap within a single pictorial space.
This way of thinking is closely connected to the way I paint.
I work on silk, applying color, waiting, and then building another layer. As pigments gradually accumulate on the translucent surface, traces of earlier colors and images never completely disappear. They remain beneath the layers that follow.
I am drawn to this process. A painting cannot be completed all at once. I have to wait, return, and apply color again. Building the surface layer by layer feels to me less like a technique than an act of accumulating time. Just as our memories are made of countless layers of time, my paintings take form through the accumulation of color, image, and time.
This is also why I find it fascinating to paint the rapidly produced and consumed images of contemporary culture through the slow process of traditional Korean color painting. I want the slow time of painting and the fast-moving time of contemporary images to coexist on the same surface.
We are always moving quickly toward something new. When I paint, I try to slow that movement for a moment. I return to memories, encounter familiar images anew, and gradually build color and time upon them.
For me, painting is a search for slow happiness within the accelerating pace of everyday life.
I hope the images in my paintings can awaken an old memory in someone and allow them, even briefly, to step outside the speed of the present and encounter the sense of innocence that still remains within.
Ultimately, I hope my paintings offer not a retreat into the past, but a small utopia where memories allow us to see ourselves anew in the present and imagine the possibility of happiness ahead.
ABOUT_ LEE JI HYUN
Education
2023 Ph.D. in Painting (Korean Painting), Graduate School of Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
2016 M.F.A. in Painting (Jinchae-Traditional Korean Color Painting), Graduate School of Hansung University, Seoul, Korea
1996 B.F.A. in Oriental Painting, Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENT
Adjunct Professor, Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
solo exhibition
2025 KIDULT UTOPIA, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
2025 RETROPIA, Gallery Arioso, Ulsan, Korea
2024 FOREVER YOUNG, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
2023 Childlike Innocence, Our Utopia, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
2023 Seeing the Essence of Joy: Bon (本), Ahn Sang Chul Museum, Yangju, Korea
2022 AMUSE, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2022 Comfort of Childlike Innocence, Restoration of Purity, Dongduk Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2022 Meeting the Child Within Again, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2021 OUR HERO, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2021 Ruminating Memories, Reflecting on Essence, Dongduk Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Invitation to Retropia, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2020 SIGNS OF THE MIND, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2019 MONTAGE, Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
2011 TIMELESS BEAUTY KOREA, Holy Family Gallery, Seoul, Korea
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS & ART FAIRS
2026 Kiaf SEOUL, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
Unrepeated Korean Painting: Rewriting 'Character is Painting', Maru Art Center, Seoul, Korea
Galleries Art Fair in Suwon, Suwon Convention Center, Gallery Mare, Suwon, Korea
Traces Left, Gazes Connected, Dongduk Women’s University Museum, Seoul, Korea
ART BUSAN, BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
Blooming Mind (Two-Person Exhibition: Lee Ji Hyun & Emily Young), Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
Galleries Art Fair, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
2025 GEEK ZONE 2025 (괴짜전), K-Contemporary Art Museum (KMCA), Seoul, Korea
Hotel Art Show in Lotte Hotel Ulsan, Gallery Arioso, Ulsan, Korea
Secular and Free, H-flux Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Re, Meeting the Magic Again, Hyundai Department Store Ulsan, Gallery Arioso, Ulsan, Korea
The Self Within, Imagining Words of Dreams (Two-Person Exhibition: Lee Ji Hyun & Kim Sook-kyung), Ahn Sang Chul Museum, Yangju, Korea
Galleries Art Fair, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
2024 Diaf (Daegu International Art Fair), EXCO, Gallery Mare, Daegu, Korea
Tradition and Variation of Korean Painting: A Double-Edged Sword, Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Seoul, Korea
DOSI NFT Project, ARTE K x K Auction, Seoul, Korea
ART BUSAN, BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
BAMA (Busan Annual Market of Art), BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
Galleries Art Fair, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
Korea-Japan International Exchange Exhibition: When Poetry Becomes Painting (詩が絵になる時), Korean Cultural Center, Osaka, Japan
2023 Diaf (Daegu International Art Fair), EXCO, Gallery Mare, Daegu, Korea
Between Genres and Boundaries: Formative Phenomena and Direction of Contemporary Korean Painting,
Kiaf SEOUL, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
ART BUSAN, BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
Galleries Art Fair, COEX, Gallery Mare, Seoul, Korea
OH! HAPPY DAY, The Hyundai Pangyo, Gallery Iam, Seongnam, Korea
BAMA (Busan Annual Market of Art), BEXCO, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
2022 mM ART : Present, mM Artgallery, Pyeongtaek, Korea
Christmas Gift Exhibition, Gallery Mare, Busan, Korea
Diaf (Daegu International Art Fair), EXCO, Gallery Mare, Daegu, Korea
New Horizons for Art's Sake, LG OLED ART x Lisson Gallery x Gallery O Square, Seoul, Korea
A&C ART FESTIVAL 2022, Art & Critic, Seoul, Korea
Taste Your Own Taste, Gallery BK x Shinsegae Centum City, Busan, Korea
Daegu Hotel Fair, Hotel Inter-Burgo, mM Artgallery, Daegu, Korea
Bear Story, Woori House Gallery KT / Partron.digital, Seoul, Korea
Beyond Horizon: NFT Exhibition, Gallery BK x Crypto.com, Seoul, Korea
Ulsan International Art Fair (UiAF), Olivia Park Gallery, Ulsan, Korea
Art Fair Daegu, Olivia Park Gallery, Daegu, Korea
Flea Ground, KT&G Sangsangmadang Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Thirsty Enthusiasm by Art Workers, Gallery BK, Seoul, Korea
2021 Art Auction & Donation, Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas, Seoul, Korea
Hello, Geeks, Flea, Seoul, Korea
Side by Side, Polestarart Art Festival, Starfield Goyang, Goyang, Korea
2020 PLAS Contemporary Art Show, COEX Convention & Exhibition Center, Seoul, Korea
TRiCERA ART Featured Artist, Tokyo, Japan
YES/NO/LIKE/DISLIKE/LOVE/HATE/REPLY/SHARE: The Portrait of Korean Pop Culture
2000–2020, Superellipse Publishing Project, Seoul, Korea
K Auction Premium Online Auction, Seoul, Korea
PUBLICATIONS & RESEARCH
2023 A Study on the Formative Expression of Kidultism
(Ph.D. Dissertation, Graduate School of Dongduk Women’s University)
2023 Pictorial Expression and Scalability of Kidultism
(The Society of East-West Art and Culture)
PRODUCT INFO
Hero 54_2026
113.0 x78.8m
Nature Pigment, Silk, Mixed Material
고객센터
+82 10-4767-8610 / attettol@gmail.com
CS: 평일 AM 9:00 - PM 6:00 (Lunch PM 1:00 - PM 2:00 / 주말 및 공휴일 휴무)
Business Name 앤드보리나(Andborina) | CEO 위희정 Wee Hee Jung
Business License 268-19-01378 | Communication Sales Business Report 2020-서울강남-01482
Address 강남구 언주로30길10, 현대비젼 923호 / 10, Eonju-ro 30-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
