LEE Jung

I create text with neon and place them in landscapes to photograph. I use the expressions of love that can be commonly found in the media and our real life. In my work, the language of love meets the deserted places ushering you into a beautifully sparkling moment. For me, the glowing neon phrases reveal the solitude and sorrow of modern people today.
The Aporia series took its motif from A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes and implies the dilemma experienced by people who fall in love. If you fall in love, your beloved becomes a mystery and the desire to express your love produces lies and conflicts leading to a dead end. As you endlessly consume the trite words of love, the object of your affection will eventually become the love itself instead of love. Aporia means ‘coming to a dead end’ in Greek. The cry for love faintly spreading across the desolate places indicates the dead end of ‘love’ that cannot be solved with logic and philosophy.
The Day and Night series tells the story of people’s ultimate desire through a cluster of love expressions. A cluster of neons floating over the dark sea as if drifting along portrays the inner side of people pursuing salvation. In this series, I focus on ‘God’ and ‘Love’ as two main words, reflecting my interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy where he highlighted the belief that true faith and love would lead you to heaven. But in my work, many texts of God and Love are displayed like a host of reproductions or in a heap, demonstrating one’s desire and confusion.

 

 

 

LEE Jung
Born in 1972, Seoul, Korea

EDUCATION
2005 MA, Photography, School of Fine Art, Royal College of Art, UK
2002 BA, Photography, Kent Institute of Art & Design, UK
1996 BA, Mass Communication & Journalism, Kyung Hee University, Korea

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITION
2013 Jung Lee, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE
Day and Night, ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2011 Aporia, ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2008 Another Country, Space Vava Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2007 Bordering North Korea, Space Vava Gallery, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2015 Korean Contemporary: Fusion, Ron Mandos Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2014 Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Rotunda, Exchange Square, Hong Kong
2013 Crossing Media, Art and Media Triennale, Villa Merkel Gallery, Esslingen, Germany
2012 Daegu Photo Biennale: Photographic!, Daegu Culture and Arts Center, Daegu, Korea
A Postcard from Afar: North Korea from a Distance, Apexart, New York, USA
2011 Terra Incognita, Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale, Incheon, Korea
Dual Images, Pohang Museum of Art, Pohang, Korea
2010 Gwangju Biennale 2010: 10,000 Lives, Gwangju, Korea
2009 Chaotic Harmony, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA
2007 Writing Paintings, Painting Words, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea