How Korean ceramicist Lee Heami and French painter Arno Boueilh found common ground in light and shadow
by Karishma Tulsidas
Photography by Jin Cheng Wong
Shot on location at the Space Furniture Singapore showroom
At first blush, the oeuvres of Korean ceramicist Lee Heami and French painter Arno Boueilh seem worlds apart. Lee works with clay and silver, transmuting soil into gleaming, moonlike vessels; Boueilh paints industrial ruins and Neapolitan streetscapes in watercolour, suffusing them with wit and light.
They live in different countries, speak different languages, and work in contrasting media, yet their practices are bound by an invisible thread: a shared fascination with light, shadow, and transformation.
Left: Several pieces of the Petit Moon Jar Vase by Heami Lee. Right: Arno Boueilh (left) and Heami Lee (right). Top: Via Rione Pica Posillipo by Arno Boueilh and High Wide Bowl by Heami Lee.
Their connection was first sparked when Boueilh saw a photograph of one of Lee’s ceramics against the Mediterranean Sea, introduced by curator Narae Park. “As a figurative painter, I’m very interested in light, because if you don’t have light, you don’t have the subject,” says Boueilh. “You can have a beautiful subject, but without light it doesn’t exist. That’s why I left Paris for Naples, because of the sun and its changing qualities throughout the day.”
Lee’s approach is different but parallel. “For me, silver itself is transformed by light and environment. The colour changes from silver to white, yellow, red, even black. So when I complete a piece, it’s not really the end. Once it’s in the world, it continues its journey with light.”
Left: A display of Arno Boueilh’s paintings and Heami Lee’s object series. Right: Moon tableware series by Heami Lee.
This dialogue between permanence and change, past and present, is the heartbeat of Terre Mêlée IV: Alchemy – Firing Time, Infusing the Moment. Jointly presented by Space Furniture, BOL Gallery, Chen+Choi Collaborative and Maison 42H, the exhibition unfolds across two venues: the sleek, modern setting of Space, and the heritage-rich intimacy of BOL Gallery.
Lee is fascinated by history and heritage. “I really appreciate old things,” she says. “They may be simple or ordinary, but for me they are treasures. My work uses soil, a primal material, but combines it with silver—something modern and luxurious. It’s a mixture of tradition and modernity.” Her ceramics shine like the moon, but carry with them the weight of memory, time, and transformation.
Boueilh, by contrast, turns his gaze to decay and ruin. “I like to find beauty in what is disappearing. Factories, roads, abandoned buildings, they’re reborn in my work with colour and humour.”
Left: ‘Cinema Ambasciatori Chiaia by Night’. Right: ‘Via Rione Pica Posillipo’. Both by Arno Boueilh.
What unites them, perhaps, is temperament. “When I first met Arno, I thought he was a great artist,” says Lee. “But I also discovered his humour, his lightness. He makes things look so easy, so fun. I tend to be serious when I work, so I admire that about him, not only as an artist, but as a friend.”
For Boueilh, the feeling is mutual. “We think differently, but the medium is the same: light.”
‘Villa Malaparte II Capri’ by Arno Boueilh.
The two have now exhibited together four times, most recently in Singapore. Terre Mêlée IV features a dialogue between East and West, ceramics and canvas, and heritage and modernity.
The exhibition runs until 5 October at Space Furniture (77 Bencoolen Street) and BOL Gallery (19 Kampong Bahru Road), curated by project director Narae Park of Maison 42H. Works by both artists will also be presented at the Affordable Art Fair this November, through BOL Gallery (Booth 3D-17).
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