Artist Jee Young Lee creates surreal dream worlds in her studio

11 December 2013

Artist Jee Young Lee creates surreal dream worlds in her studio

Work by South Korean artist, on show at the OPIOM gallery in France, sees haunting recreations of the beautiful, surreal and downright terrifying landscapes of the human subconscious

All pictures: Jee Young Lee, courtesy of OPIOM Gallery

Henry James famously warned authors against describing dreams in literature with the advice, 'Tell a dream, lose a reader.' But the same does not seem to hold true for visual art - at least if these fascinating and strangely compelling dreamscapes by artist Lee Jee Young are anything to go by.

Foodchain; Jee Young Lee, courtesy of OPIOM Gallery

On show at the OPIOM Gallery in France from 7 February to 7 March, the work, which is painstakingly created in the artist's 3m x 6m studio and then photographed, explores the often uncannily familiar territory of dreams and nightmares - such as being cast adrift on a strange sea of what look like papier mache tongues, or being besieged by everyday objects such as paperclips grown large and menacing.

crows

Black Birds; Jee Young Lee, courtesy of OPIOM Gallery

The artists appears in the works, in one hemmed in by a fortress of giant LEGO bricks; in another appearing to sip nectar from a giant flower; however she is never front-on to the camera because, according to the gallery, 'it is never her visual aspect she shows, but rather her quest for an identity, her desires and her frame of mind.'

LEGO

Gamer; JeeYoung Lee, courtesy of OPIOM Gallery

This work taps in not only to our fascination with dreams and the unconscious mind, but also to our fascination with places, particularly rooms, which often feature in some distorted way in our dream-life.

Maiden Voyage; Jee Young Lee, courtesy of OPIOM Gallery

Read Lee Jee Young's artist's statement here.

Stage of Mind

The primary motifs in this series derive from my questions about who I am at the moment. It is a photographic elucidation of my concerns about my identity, exploration about myself and search for the things that I am capable of doing, desire to do, enjoy doing and can do well, and furthermore, my thoughts on how I should live my life. I try to search for the answers to my questions and concerns through the process of photographing and the subsequent artwork. I am neither too young nor old enough, grown up but not fully formed like the fully grown but unripe fruit, and still under metamorphosis. I am an adult but cannot be categorized as an adult in entirety. I am an incomplete being who is not entirely independent. The main subject in my work is to reflect myself as a member of the society and as an individual who influences and is influenced by the surroundings in it. Therefore, through my work, I strive to complete myself by reflecting myself and to objectify my current status and situations by creating sceneries of them.

sea

Monsoon Season; Jee Young Lee, courtesy of OPIOM Gallery

In my work, I reconstruct my feelings and situations in relation to the society. The background sets and symbolic props and objects in them are to reenact the scenes in a metaphorical way. The set is 360x600x240cm in dimension and I recreate it as a narrative space by painting it and filling it with hand-made objects myself. By building the space with my personal, psychological experiences in everyday life, I try to visualize my inner world of which the meanings cannot be value-judged. My work, in essence, records my concerns and process of growing up. It narrates and dramatizes my life stories.

dice

Neverending Race; Jee Young Lee, courtesy of OPIOM Gallery

Reality is too unrelenting to let all the dreams come true. Nothing is guaranteed and it is hard to win what you want. Being powerless in the social structure, I feel like I am experiencing constant growing pain or belated adolescence. An individual may be an insignificant member in the whole society but he continues to survive in its oppressive and cutthroat situations. I am confused by incomprehensible aspects of the society. I feel sympathetic about or discontented with people in the society. However, I am also part of them. The society obliges me to carry numerous roles and responsibilities but I feel so burdened. However, if life is a process of resolving these problems, I will do my best in my position like other people do. In this series, I reflect myself who performs on the present progressive stage and look into myself who is growing up in reaction to the society.

paperclips