From Line
- Artist: Lee Ufan
- Date: 1978
- Medium: Oil paint and glue on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1818 x 2275 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is the “From Line” by Lee Ufan, painted in 1978. Lee, a South Korean artist, created a series of long, vertical strokes until the paint ran out. He laid the canvas flat and worked with a round‑tipped brush, loading cobalt‑blue pigment dissolved in glue. Each stroke starts thick at the top and gradually thins, almost disappearing at the bottom, a deliberate build‑and‑unload that follows the rhythm of his breathing. The entire canvas is set against a translucent yellow wash, making the blue lines vibrate against the subtle background.
The work contains 26 individual strokes, grouped in pairs, triples, and so on, arranged left‑to‑right. Lee writes, “Load the brush and draw a line… A line must have a beginning and an end. Space appears within the passage of time, and when the process of creating space comes to an end, time also vanishes.” In this piece the artist turns the act of painting into a meditation on time and space, inviting viewers to sense how the passage of a single line can dissolve both the brushstroke and the very notion of time.
See it in person
From Line is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
