Jinlee

이진경은 변화와 움직임에서 파생된 가능성의 불안과 함께 살아갈 방법을 판화, 조각, 아티스트 북 등의 만들기라는 행위로 풀어간다. 군집 내 현상의 차이와 반복을 관찰하여 이해한 시스템의 텐션을 대상으로부터 소격화된 단순한 형태들과 색의 조화로 개체간의 스릴러를 재구현하는 방식으로 공감을 표한다. 이진경은 여성과 프린터라는 본인의 정체성이 갖는 복제 가능성과 변주 가능성에 집중하여 관찰자로서 경험하는 동시대의 다양한 불안을 안고 끝까지 살아갈 방법 혹은 희망을 작업을 통해 모색하고자 한다.

School of Art Institute of Chicago 에서 BFA Studio Art (2019) 와 MFA Printmedia (2021)을 전공하였으며 Tamarind Institute 에서 Professional Traning Program (2023)을 연수하여 석판화 collaborative printer로 기반을 쌓았다. 이진경은 시카고, 뉴욕, 호주, 유럽 등 에서 다수의 전시에 참여하였으며 판화를 가르치고, 프린터로써 다양한 아티스트들과 협업활동을 했다. 현재는 서울에서 활동 기반을 다지고 있다.

Jin Lee is an artist and printmaker born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and currently lives and works in Chicago, IL, after achieving a BFA and MFA in Printmedia at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. By assembling estranged elements of shapes, colors, and rhythm of patterns into harmonized movements and energy, Lee creates prints, sculptures, and furniture design. Her practice shows the courage to embrace the uncertainty in life, depicting the difference and repetition.

Print Statement

I interrogate the authority of the physical perception as the universal trigger to exploit in society by proving the existence of "the future family," a mythical concept that I took the role of the mother. My virtual family gains physicality through images, sculptures, furniture, books, and digital works, which I regard as prints. The prints are simulacra of the future family.

I suggest the intense fractions of the social issue are based on overtrusted reproductivity of print media. Alongside the development of civilization, printed matter gained its credibility based on the ability that exact messages can exist over time and space and share them throughout the world. Advanced technology and networks nowadays liberate the power of the reproduction of data. Everyone can create new information, and it spreads globally in a second. The information in our times lost its credibility, and the individual's beliefs became the fact with homemade evidence. We live in a time where everybody is correct, but the others are wrong.

Every creature begins by printing the DNA of its ancestors. It is impossible to blame humans for blind faith in prints because they share the same trajectory of existence caused by the libido or the urge to be understood. 

Here is a comparison of the mechanism of life and print.

1. A Life is an action, perceiving impressions of happening.

2. The happening never changes.

3. A Life is a collection of perceived serial perceptions bound on a living creature.

4. Libido is one of the byproducts of '1, 2, and 3'.

5. A phenomenon is also a life due to '1, 2, and 3'; the happening never changes, but perception can.

6. Living is a life-generating process, not a reproducing process.

7. The perceived idea is meaningless, but time creates syntax. Therefore life is meaningful.

8. However, time is an illusion.

9. Therefore, life is also an illusion.

10. A life exists forever, regardless of my existence.

1'. A print is an action, shifting an impression from a matrix.

2'. A matrix is never changed.

3'. A printed image is a collection of shifted single or several impressions bounded on a physical surface.

4'. Mass production is one of the byproducts of 1’, 2’, and 3'.

5'. A monotype is also a print due to 1’, 2’, and 3'; a matrix cannot be changed, but impressions can.

6'. Printing is an image-generating process, not a reproducing process.

7'. Ink is meaningless, but a politic creates syntax. Therefore a print is meaningful.

8'. However, politics is an illusion.

9'. Therefore, print is also an illusion.

10'. The printed image exists forever, regardless of its existence.

I practice asserting that reproductivity is only a byproduct of both print and human life. I focus on printing as a learning experience of how to make things. Artists prepare on matrixes imagining of the final image. The preparation processes are separated from the finished work. Repeating the estranged steps doesn't affect other iterations; therefore, prints can be reproduced. The artistic results fabricated from instruction disengage from their physical existence of time and space. 

Registration, the pool of ink, and surface material should be consistent as an edition set. To break the certainty of a concept, I play a game with the three features. Each play of game develops differently based on the players, chances, and strategies. Furthermore, printmaking can expand to 3 dimension objects, video, or performance with simple game instructions.  

By modifying the consistencies at each iteration, the set of prints achieves romantic quality from the uncertainty. The romance is driven by breaking patterns of the stillness of images and viewers' expectation of repetition. The "movement" and "fakeness" are two core qualities embodying the myth of the future family. I borrow motifs from domestic objects and scenes. Based on the market studies about how individuals are utilizing the subjects of house and family. I examine what physical features or situations keep the viewers' perceptions of the subjects and how to frustrate them by emasculating the universal function. 

Six intaglio series Fake Boxes (2018), cardboard furniture series Fake Furniture for the Future Family (2019), three sets of Fake Carry On Luggage Cases (2020), Two Perosns' Armchair (2021), and Embryos (2020-2021) are the series of fake objects trying their best to deceive the viewers to make them want to use the objects. These broken domestic objects ask the viewers to accept the failure of their stances as the user.

Also, it shows the same on the print portfolios. Most of my works are experimentation with creating various images that can be printed from a set of matrixes. Difference in Repetition (2018) is the first set of 16 multilayered lithographs inspired by Gill Deleuze's book Difference and Repetition. Beginning with the print set, I started to play with the T and Bar registration system, the composition of paper on the aluminum plate, colors of the ink, and the limitation of print presses. Shifted Impression (2018), Dance (2019), 3:1 Embryos (2020), and Elevators in the Construction Site (2021) are following lithograph portfolios, and they are the single-player game notations. Each image in the variable editioned prints shares a certain amount of kinship that keeps changing. The gathered images derive the rhythms in movement. 

The overturn of the power between the viewer and the unexpected deployments ruminates the abusive nature of society. It might be the reality, but not the future. I bring hope with the story of the future family that the realization is not to despair but to change. The impediment presented in my works is to unchain the systematic norms and broaden the magnanimity for others to deal with societal discrimination.