EXHIBITION IMAGES | PRESS RELEASE | ARTIST PAGE
–
Halsey Mckay presents the ceramic paintings of Jennie Jieun Lee, her first solo show with the gallery. Using clay, her preferred medium, she continues her procedure of taking accumulated kiln fired pieces and fusing them onto wood panels. Acrylic, oil paint, magic markers and resin coat the wood as she develops and carries forth her visual language of internalized fear, anxiety and hope. It is visible throughout the conglomeration of textures and variegated hues that Lee is reckoning with the impact of bearing witness to the historical accretion of human tragedies as well as the current global pandemic and US administration. She uses her ability to interpolate raw, fired clay alongside heavily glazed porcelain and stoneware fragments as a demonstration of the sense of dissonance and Han felt while making this exhibition.
–
Also on view is the stop-motion animation film, Moon Glare by the artist Suzanne Goldenberg. Lee and Goldberg met 16 years ago and their friendship solidified at a career training program in Midtown, New York. On the classroom wall, they took a liking to a photo collage of two alumni named César and Butch. From then on they referred to each other by those nicknames and have been close confidants in art and poetry. Lee states that only Goldenberg would know how to make a film properly using her ceramics due to them both sharing a kindred neurosis which could be traced to their Korean and Jewish lineage. Lee gives bottomless thanks to Suzanne Goldenberg for creating such a moving vision where words fail to describe the love she has for her and the film.
–
Jennie Jieun Lee was born in Seoul, Korea and currently lives in upstate New York. She graduated from School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and received her MFA in Ceramics at California State University Long Beach. Her work has been shown extensively throughout the world with solo and two person shows at Martos Gallery, New York, NY; Marlborough Contemporary: Viewing Room, New York, NY; 11R, New York, NY; Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada; Galerie Lefebvre et fils, Paris, France; The Pit, Glendale, CA along with groups shows at Jonathan Viner Gallery, London, UK; Shulamit Nazarian, LA, CA and Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy. Jennie is a recipient of the 2017 John Simon Guggenheim fellowship and the 2019 Art Matters Grant.