Jongeun Gina Lee ( She/Her )

I imagine each piece I make is on its own journey, just like everything in Nature transforms in lineage of time & space. I decenter myself and find peace accepting that I am a tiny part of a larger cycle. It allows me to cope with turbulences and disappointments in life. I get inspired by observing resilience and balance in precarious journeys of all existence in nature, while all of us suffers from vulnerability and randomness of existence. I construct forms using strips of clay catching the right moment of dryness. The current body of works represents slow incubation of inner strength, cautious hope and resilience with optimism in life. I create empty but charged space using linear elements to articulate the hidden energy in nature which transforms and pushes everything through its journey. I use linear units in my form assembly as a metaphor of paradoxical adaptability in time and space. The fascination with line started in my visual analysis of the world while I kept asking myself what/who I was. My eyes broke down the scenes of my surroundings into small units, then the “lines” were everywhere in-between the emptiness and solidness, shapes and no-shapes, softness and roughness, and stillness, gestures. 

Lee was born & raised in South Korea and moved to the US as an adult. Her sculptures are embedded with her meditations on searching for the purpose of existence. She struggled with the chauvinistic culture she was born in and her experience as a female immigrant seeking for an open world greatly influenced her works. She always drew and created since a young child. She had a career as a textile & home accessory designer in her past after moving to the US. Her work experience in creating her own product lines influences greatly in what she currently does. The exposure to the various mediums and manufacturing resources eventually led her into ceramics and sculptures. Her creative practice has deepened as a means of coping with the challenges of prolonged infertility treatments. Over the years, her creative process has become her source of resilience, empowering her to navigate through life journey.