Lee Ufan at the Pace Gallery, New York

Lee Ufan is a man of multiple aspects: he is a painter, a sculptor and a printmaker; he is also a poet and philosopher in his extensive and thoughtful writings about art; he is Korean-born but a longtime resident of Japan who has also lived in Paris. His best-known paintings have a kinship to calligraphy in that he makes defined, isolated brushstrokes on canvases that are nearly empty. And considering the focused action and heightened sense of touch that those paintings embody, it’s no surprise that he has long explored the receptiveness of clay as well.