Jennifer Lee
Everything that exists leaves a trace, and I strive to express it. Specifically, everything I see is imprinted with colors and shapes through light, leaving behind traces of memories.
Rather than leaving those traces as vague memories or colorless, meaningless remnants in the blurred memories or subconscious, I pick up a brush and add the yearning of my heart to the colors I can express. I want to share with you my feelings, emotions, and the stories of those moments. I blend paints, create textures, and tell stories in my own way by harnessing both my intuition and imagination. The traces of light that enter through my eyes are recreated anew at my fingertips. Through this process, I encapsulate stories and convey my experiences. I hope that when you look at my work, you’ll pause for a moment to hear my story.
Everyone lives while reminiscing. It could be regrets about the irretrievable past or fantasies about different places and times. Through my artwork, I want to transport you to a different dimension that I’ve created. In that place, I hope you can forget all the pain, regrets, and weariness you’re feeling right now and immerse yourself in deep contemplation.
The life of an artist is an endless struggle against despair for the joy of creation. I strive to vividly express the beauty around me in my own way, using light, color, and texture to convey my inner emotions. In this process, what I see blends with the colors of my emotions. I draw what I want to draw based on my own will, not someone else’s demands. I often paint landscapes, as they are the best at capturing yearning, but when my mind is in turmoil, I also paint still lifes. And when there’s no other way to express my heart, I immerse myself passionately in abstraction.
I aimed to convey reality while incorporating the flow of sensory thinking, adding the flow and tremors of light, the temperature of colors, emotions, and subconscious elements. Through these works, everything about me transitions into the artworks. I hope my life and existence resonate with someone through my arts. I eagerly anticipate the moment when my work captivates someone’s eyes and stirs their soul, a moment when my creation becomes a masterpiece. Today, I pick up the brush to divide the moments of my remaining life.
I majored in industrial design in college. I’ve been certified as a design practical teacher, art psychotherapist, and reading tutor, and I’ve worked as a teacher at a children’s art institute and managed it as well. I also worked as an after-school art teacher at a small elementary school in the countryside. Driven by my deep passion for art, I asked Jinwoo Kim to mentor me. Under his guidance, I’ve been honing my skills for over 10 years, and it’s been about 7 years since I showed my work to the world.
The time when I embarked on my artistic journey coincided with the most painful period of my life. It was when my twin daughters were born, and tragically, my eldest daughter passed away just 10 months later. This agonizing period led me to delve deeper into the world of art. From then on, I viewed the act of creating art as a form of inner therapy, recovery, and regeneration—a way to heal my soul. I believe this process allows me to pour all the emotions and experiences I’ve had in my remaining life into my art. Through this journey, my artworks compress every moment of pain and joy, despair and happiness that exist within me.
In the midst of this process, I realized, through an exploration of the essence of art, that its foundation lies in light, and that light is the reason for the existence of this world. Just as scientists say that in quantum mechanics, the state is determined through observation, the creation and appreciation of artworks ultimately fall within the realm of working with light through observation. I came to understand that this is the essence of our existence in this world. We are all products of light.
I divide the rest of my life into my artwork. At some point, I became captivated by the desire to convey these emotions as they are, without anyone altering them arbitrarily. Therefore, I started documenting the emotions and thoughts accompanying each piece in short writings, hoping that even in the future, I would not modify them.
Through the act of painting, I express both the beauty of nature and the conflicts within myself. The perfect order of nature constantly changes under the irregular wavelengths of light. In my art, I strive not for mere depiction, but for capturing the emotions and ideas hidden within. As a result, the boundaries of my work have expanded from realism to abstraction.
Recently, I’ve moved beyond simply expanding boundaries—I’ve begun to merge different methods of expression. By combining the clear forms of realism with the free and conceptual sensibilities of abstraction, I aim to express my unique colors, forms, and inner emotions all at once.
This is akin to chaos within order, and conversely, the order that emerges from chaos. I have always strived to go beyond mere representation of objects, seeking instead to convey my own distinct colors and textures. Now, I am beginning a new narrative that unfolds at the intersection of nature and the inner self. In this process, realistic forms blend into abstract colors and textures, while abstract sensations take on concrete shapes. This is how I am establishing my own original aesthetic.
From now on, this approach will be at the core of my work, which will continue to evolve and reflect deeply on itself. I hope you will discover the dialogue between reality and ideas that flows through my art.
Graduated from the Industrial Design Department of Gangwon National University (1999). Qualified as a design practical teacher, art psychotherapist, and reading tutor
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