PKM Gallery is pleased to present Before It Becomes a Scene, a solo exhibition by Keunmin Lee (b. 1982), on view from June 10 to July 25, 2026. Marking the artist’s first solo exhibition with PKM gallery, the presentation brings together new works developed since 2023, including large-scale canvases approaching three meters in height and a series of drawings. Featuring twenty-three works presented in Korea for the first time, the exhibition offers insight into Lee’s recent practice.

Twenty-five years ago, while hospitalized following a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, Lee underwent two formative experiences: the authority of psychiatric diagnosis and the experience of hallucination. He became aware of the violence embedded within systems that classify and define human disposition through the language of pathology. At the same time, he encountered hallucinations populated by nameless presences—fragmented bodies, traces of living organisms, raw matter, and wounds. Taking these memories of suffering as a point of departure, Lee repeatedly summons beings excluded by systems of social categorization and control onto the canvas.

Before It Becomes a Scene traces the exposed psychological terrains that runs throughout Lee’s work. Here, the term “scene” refers to a situation shaped by intention, construction, or definition. Lee instead turns his attention to a state that exists prior to such framing—his visual and auditory hallucinations before they were classified as symptoms of illness. As suggested by titles such as Organic Plate, Connected Body, and Psychiatrist’s Head, fragmented and dispersed bodily forms that emerged in these hallucinations form a central motif in the exhibition. Rather than simply reproducing these images, Lee translates their elusive sensations and nuances into a coherent visual language. The explosive energy that unfolds across the canvases ultimately becomes both a vivid portrait of the artist’s inner landscape and an expression of liberation from the social frameworks that once confined him.

Muscles, organs, and blood-like traces in Lee’s paintings originate in personal experience, yet they also point to a condition shared by all—one that resists control regardless of the boundaries between self and other, or disability and non-disability. The warm, predominantly red palette reflects both the artist’s instinctive attraction to flesh and blood and a direct, unguarded metaphor for humanity and life itself. Created through an automatism process, without preliminary sketches or predetermined plans, the Refining Hallucinations drawing series traces primitive and unsettling beings pushed to the margins of society with fluid pen lines. By returning viewers to a state before existence is shaped by imposed definitions and standards, the exhibition invites an encounter with genuine freedom and catharsis.

Before It Becomes a Scene, a solo exhibition by Keunmin Lee, remains on view at PKM Gallery through July 25, 2026. The interview video with the artist can be viewed at the bottom of this page.