Lee Seung Jio (1941–1990) was a pioneering figure in postwar Korean geometric abstraction and a founding member of the avant-garde groups Origin (1962–) and AG (1969–1975). Amid Korea’s rapid modernization, Lee developed a distinctive visual language through his iconic Nucleus series—often referred to as his “pipe” paintings—where cylindrical forms dissolve the boundary between two-dimensional plane and three-dimensional space. Executed with flat brushes, masking tape, and sandpaper, his precise, rational compositions stood apart from the gestural energy of Korean Art Informel and the later material focus of Dansaekhwa, establishing him as a singular voice who translated industrial aesthetics into a rigorous painterly vocabulary.

In the 1970s, Lee deepened his investigation into perception and the act of painting itself. Moving away from the sharp, metallic density of his early cylinders, he adopted softer tonal gradations and diagonal arrangements that emphasized rhythm, subtlety, and sensation. His process—rooted in repetition, surface refinement, and the corporeality of painting—aligned conceptually with contemporaneous Dansaekhwa while remaining distinct in its unwavering focus on the “nucleus” as a condensed form of perception. During this period, his works reflected a phenomenological sensibility, presenting illusion not as representation but as an exploration of presence, rhythm, and spatial vibration.

Nucleus 78-23 (1978) exemplifies this phase through its dark, rhythmically banded surface of diagonally aligned cylinders, rendered in restrained tonalities of black and near-black. The subtle modulations of light across the tubular forms generate a pulsing optical rhythm, at once mechanical and atmospheric. In their serial arrangement, the cylinders appear to hover between solidity and dissolution, evoking vibration rather than mass. This balance of precision and immateriality situates the painting as a site of meditative perception, where industrial rigor is transformed into a quiet, almost immaterial field of sensation.