Bellas Artes has represented the work of Jingjun Lee since 2000. This summer the gallery will present the third exhibition of the Korean photographer’s work. In 1984 Lee received her BFA in ceramics at Hong-IK University in Seoul. The artist moved to New York City in 1988 and lived there until 1996. During this time she received a master’s degree in photography from New York University and worked as an assistant for photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank.

Lee’s work is unique in the world of photography. She does not mechanically reproduce multiples, but creates each work by hand. She brushes liquid emulsion onto large sheets of handmade rice and mulberry papers. Her brushstrokes sweep across the soft texture of the paper and capture the photographic image, revealing a painter’s sensibility in a gestural dance. Calligraphy, an art form the artist mastered as a young child, resonates through her oeuvre.

The Bellas Artes exhibition will feature photographs from Lee’s Wind Series. Lee writes, “The images in the Wind Series represent my introspective states and thoughts. Out in the field, in the forest, or in the village, I am ready to press the shutter release when the scenery stirs my emotions and imagination. This moment of ‘absolute echo’ within myself travels through infinite time and space. That is, ‘Wind’ becomes my energy of free spirit. Vanishment and transformation. Sadness - yet another change.” She continues, “Wind is invisible and it contains more of inner thoughts than an actual fact or a definition. I don’t try to make my definite direction of wind in my works. That is why I like the title Wind. They are just landscape pictures...”

Lee’s words are reminiscent of a Buddhist belief that the function of the mind depends on a subtle wind. This “vehicle of the mind” flows in all channels of the body, transporting the blood and consciousness for the duration of one’s life. Wind is one of the essential energies that sustains life. We feel this energy in these photographs.

The series was made in a wide panoramic format on gelatin silver coated Korean Hanji paper. The absorbent surface texture of the paper combined with dreamlike images of the natural world and of man’s habitation within it creates the illusion of movement - an imperceptible blur of the motion of internal landscapes transported by a breath both human and cosmic. In the catalogue, Contemporary Korean Photographers: A New Generation, Bohnchang Koo writes that Lee “renders her themes like silent objects, but their silence is like an infinite whispering.” Perhaps he is sensing the subtle wind coursing through her poetic and painterly work.

Lee’s photographs have been exhibited extensively in galleries and museums throughout the United States, Europe, and Korea. In the US, her work is included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and New Mexico Museum of Art.

On Monday, June 30, three days after the exhibition opens, Lee will be giving a lecture on her work at the Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI), 1600 St. Michael’s Drive. The lecture will be followed by an exhibition in the SFAI gallery of the artist’s work, August 3 - 23.

For further information and photographs, please contact:
Charlotte Kornstein
Tel: 505-983-2745 Fax: 505-983-1271 E-mail: [email protected]