When hallucinations become art

Korean painter Lee Keun-min cracks open the border between illness and imagination in “Before It Becomes a Scene,” his first solo exhibition at PKM Gallery. The show turns decades-old hallucinations into searing, flesh-toned canvases that ask who gets to define a “normal” mind. On view through July 25 in the gallery in Seoul’s Jongno District, the show brings together 23 previously unseen works, including large-scale paintings towering nearly 3 meters high and a new series of drawings titled “Refining Hallucinations.” The works, all created since 2023, are being presented in Korea for the first time. Lee traces the origin of this feverish visual world back 25 years, when he was hospitalized after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. There, he confronted what he calls the “authority” of psychiatric language and the overwhelming force of his own hallucinations, populated by fragmented bodies, raw matter and nameless organic forms. He explained that he keeps painting his hallucinations to seize them “before it becomes a scene” — before a doctor names