In the exhibition Drawing Laboratory, Uesung Lee presents his work ranging from 2015, which is when he began integrating the theme of labor with an act of drawing as a mediator in his work in order to reinterpret ways of adapting oneself to the social structure, up to present date.  From Productive Drawing, which explores the new forms and usage of the tools that one is familiar with, to Physical Drawing, which investigates the causes for overtime work and wasted labor power, the exhibition showcases works reflecting the artist’s effort to expand and develop the scope of his own research from diverse angles.

In the Productive Drawing series, the artist reassembles the existing standards and notions that are necessary to define “a productive labor activity” in the relationship between individuals and the social structure, which are built on labor, such as tools, numbers, time, units, and monetary values and turns them into a creative work. In the Physical Drawing series, Lee presents an installation piece, which is the result of his exploration on the relations between the wasted expenditure of one’s labor and accumulated labor power. In order to visualize a drawing that is “productive as well as physical,” he pays attention to the tools used for production and the marks left on the objects as byproducts. Thus, the scope of  Uesung Lee’s innovative artistic practice presented throughout the exhibition is a starting point that sets his work apart from other shows that typically put drawing works forward. In other words, Lee does not treat drawing as only a way of making pictures and does not take this particular medium solely to highlight different aspects found in the reality of labor (i.e. labor activities and labor conditions) in the exhibition. Instead, he reveals different relationships in the “socio-ecological environment” that are far from real life—by presenting the concept of labor, which one easily acknowledges in real life, and the act of drawing, which is a non-visual element, and present them as connecting links resembling the complex interrelationship between individuals and the society. In order to do that, he deconstructs the visual elements found at the intersection where labor and the act of drawing meet in a varied ways. Each audience’s way of thinking and will power reconstitutes a new value system, and it creates a dimension where one does not directly deal with the reality of labor but can humorize it. However, each element identified through the deconstruction process becomes classified into the previously mentioned two major categories and functions as a guide for the audience to understand the artist’s work.
 
Thus, the exhibition lets the audience in to experience the interconnectedness between the artist himself and the reality of labor, the deconstruction of the notion of labor and its form through the drawing methods used, and the “sense of space,” which is occupied by the visualized labor power and labor productivity. The works in the exhibition may fluster the audience who expected to see only two-dimensional drawing works based on the exhibition title Drawing Laboratory. As mentioned earlier, the exhibition does not present drawings as finished products, but it functions as a sort of “laboratory” that allows drawing methods or the act of drawing itself to serve as mediators in the reality of labor. Moreover, the exhibition as a “laboratory” becomes a space where one contemplates the implication of labor recreated by the audience’s individual experience and the expanded usage of drawing.
 
The artist refers to the “drawing” in Drawing Laboratory as “a proper way of documentation and theorization that can be used in a hypothesis for an experiment in process. Going beyond an experiment, it helps me to flexibly assemble different forms of labor and its functions and transform them into a possible number of cases.” In addition, when one takes apart the term “laboratory” into “labor” and “-atory,” one can reflect on combining the primary themes that run through the exhibition such as labor and relation. Through his drawing experiment, the artist demonstrates “labor-related” productivity and wasted labor power and presents his work process and final products (drawings, tools, installation works, etc.) as various layers for contemplation in the exhibition.  
 
Drawing Laboratory has been realized through the intensive support for the artist’s research and curatorial guide from ARKO Creative Academy and Insa Art Space, which aim to expand the formal and contextual realm of the creative practice of the next generation of artists. The exhibition has been developed on the artist’s year-long research on conceptualizing and visualizing labor, the term the artist has delved into for a while. It is expected that the exhibition will provide the audience with an opportunity to peek into the artist’s own thinking process regarding drawing and labor and his innovative artistic style that translates his ideas into art and to think about how the artist’s work may develop in the future.