Reflection and Re-Invention: The Art of Hye Rim Lee
Read Mirabelle Field's superb essay on Hye Rim Lee's recent exhibitions at Northart:
Double-edged Sword, crystal, 2008. 1300 x 1300mm, c-type print, perspex face mounting, black lacquered wooden frame. Edition 1 of 5.
“Each iteration of Hye Rim Lee’s artistic practice can be seen to take on a new form. They build on each other, certainly, but her 3D animations are so tied in to the artist’s journey and to her understanding of the world around her that they simultaneously speak to each other, and speak for themselves. If Crystal City addresses issues of identity and society through the lens of sexuality and fantasy, Black Rose is the embodiment of those issues, and the manifestation of a personal artistic journey. Here, TOKI has evolved from her hyper-sexualised bunny persona to the Black Rose Queen. A character who, in the artists own words, “resists the playfully passive readings of TOKI to date and connects to a more personal narrative, exploring ideas of isolation, oppression, lost love, hopelessness, and a sensibility of imagination and darkness in the mortality of human”