YOUNG JOO LEE PAINTING

Young Joo Lee is a multimedia artist using animation, performance, drawing, painting, sculpture, and digital media to investigate historical concepts of “otherness,” mythmaking, and the influences of mass media. Lee grew up in a divided Korea, influenced by the boundaries and biases of colonialism and the Cold War. Based on research and personal anecdotes, Lee’s works interweave her memories with collective, imagined, or omniscient narratives, employing multiple times, spaces, screens, or points of view to challenge hegemonic stability. Often surreal or magical realist in nature, each of Lee’s projects offers a world built for the express purpose of making visible the consequences of colonialism, capitalism, classism, xenophobia, sexism, and environmental exploitation.

“These paintings were made after experiencing the shortage of meat and dairy products (as well as intimate human interactions) during the early months of Covid lockdown. I tried to capture the abstraction of the animal and human flesh we consume mediated by supermarkets and screens.” –Young Joo Lee