“When I started working with charcoal I saw at once that it was closely bound up with my own culture. What’s more, at the time I felt the need to keep a strong connection with my roots, like any unknown artist arriving in a city that he doesn’t know and whose language doesn’t speak - especially one coming from the Far East. I felt like a stranger, very far from home, and for me the charcoal was a way back to the world of Indian ink, of calligraphy, the atmosphere of house building that I had known as a child. In the Korean tradition, when you dig the foundations, charcoal is the first thing you put in, notably for protection against humidity, insects, etc. Likewise, when a child is born, you announce the fact by hanging charcoal from the door on a rope. It is also the centre of that fire ceremony, ‘Burning the moon house’, when, on the occasion of the first full moon, in January villagers build a mound like a house, 20 to 25 meters high, with pine trunks. The members of each family hang up their wishes there, written on bits of Chinese paper, then they set light to the whole thing. So I was familiar with charcoal and its symbolic strength. It enabled me to keep the connection with my past.”
— Lee Bae