Blanchette by Leki

Leki

Leki is a London-based South Korean multidisciplinary artist working across clay, painting, coloured pencil, metal and writing. He creates provocative imagery that sparks dialogue and challenges established narratives.

Having experienced domestic abuse and exploitation, Leki developed a strong drive to surface the uncomfortable forms of violence that society often silences. This formative experience led him to question systems that neglect victims and to reclaim agency for survivors. In his work he deliberately deconstructs victimhood, shifting the focus toward survival and the figure of the victor. Scars imprinted on the body are not marks of shame but medals of endurance — evidence of the capacity to stand tall after everything that has been endured.

Blanchette

I witnessed a murder.

Your father already did the deeds.

There is nothing left to kill.

Death leaned in and whispered

the only time you were alive

was the bleeding.

You hid your bones inside my body.

Used me as a bandage.

What arms.

What teeth.

What eyes—

those green mirages

that collapsed into an endless tunnel of shadows.

When I walked in

I understood:

there had never been a me.

Only you.

Only an unbodied animal

working for the knife.

I am not gentle.

I lift you the way a butcher lifts a carcass

he refuses to throw away—

both hands, full weight,

your emptied body

hanging open like a split fruit.

Look.

The dark was never full.

Just a walking grave that learned to bite.

Leftover hunger wearing its flesh.

I did not come to relieve your misery.

I came so that every time you see me

you will remember your death.

Now I rise.

No longer seventeen.

A prisoner.

I am your executioner.