Jungjin Lee’s large-format photographs on handmade Korean rice paper are often mistaken for charcoal drawings at first glance. In the darkroom, she brushes photosensitive emulsion onto handmade Korean rice paper. Lee then uses a traditional photo enlarger to project the image onto the prepared surface. The results are texturally unique prints – the brushwork traces within the emulsion base lend a painterly quality, while the rice paper beneath gives the image a more tactile, organic feel. The unusually large sizes claim their own presence, testifying to the labor and time intensive process of Lee’s work.  Since her recent series “Unnamed Road,” Lee has combined her traditional darkroom practices with digital printing technologies for the first time. Using the same process to create her traditional darkroom prints, she then scans in these initial prints to digitally print onto Japanese mulberry paper, thus adding even more textures and tonal ranges from this secondary paper source. 

 

BACKGROUND & EDUCATION

 

1991   MFA, New York University, New York, NY

 

1984   BFA, Hong Ik University, Seoul, Korea

 

 

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Huston, TX

New Orleans Museum of Art, LA

Akron Art Museum, Ohio Portland Art Museum, Oregon

FotoFest, Houston

FNAC, Paris

France Sprint Corporation, KA

Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Kyongju, Korea

National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea

Museum of Photography, Seoul, Korea

Hanlim Museum, Taejon, Korea

Kumho Museum of Fine Art, Seoul

 

Korea Korea Development Bank, Seoul, Korea 

 

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

 

2017    "Everglades and Opening," Andrew Bae Gallery, Chicago, IL

2017    Retrospective "Echo," Stadtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany

2016    Retrospective "Echo," Winterthur Foto Museum, Switzerland

2015    "White Echoes: Poetics of Hanji and Contemporary Art," Museum SAN, South Korea

             "This Place," Norton Museum, West Palm Beach, FL

             Andrew Bae Gallery, "Unnamed Road," Chicago

2015     Dox Centre for Contemporary Art, "This Place," Prague

2014     MIA - Milan Image Art Fair (Stephan Witschi Gallery In Zurich ) Milano                          

              Fridman Gallery, “Untitled,” New York                          

              Shinsegae Gallery, “Thing,” Seoul                

2013    Dong Gang Museum Of Photography, “Thing/Wind,” Yeongwol                          

              Andrea Robbi Museum, “Thing,” St.Moritz, Switzerland                

2012     Camera Obscura Gallery, “Wind/Thing,” Paris

              Stephan Witschi Gallery, “Thing & Wind,” Zurich                           

              Boyer Gallery, Pagodas/Wind” The Hill School, Pennsylvania

2011     Aperture, New York, NY

              Andrew Bae Gallery, Chicago, IL

2010     Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

2008     Bellas Artes Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2007     Andrew Bae Gallery, Chicago, IL

2005     Andrew Bae Gallery, Chicago, IL

              Pyo Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2003     Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR

              Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA

2002    Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM

              Gallerie Photo, Montpellier, France The Museum of Photography, Seoul, Korea

              Sepia International Gallery, New York, NY

2001     Intl Fotoage, Herten, Germany  

              "Summer 2001," Sepia International, New York, NY

2000     "Figures and Paysages," Korean Cultural Center Rena CABranstein Gallery, San Francisco, 

1999    Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1997    "Wasteland," Art Space Seoul Gallery, Seoul, Korea

1996    Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

              Dissolving Landscapes, Center for East Asian Studies, Wesleyan, CT

1995    Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Kyongju, Korea

              Pace MacGill Gallery, New York, NY

1994    LA. County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

1992    Turner Krull Gallery, Los Angeles, CA