Hye Rim Lee
“Late December 2019, I received an invitation from Natalie Tozer about participating in the mothermother project. I came up with the idea of celebrating summer with Pink (2013) which is a celebration of all the elements from past projects to a future project to come (Black Rose).
Pink is a dreamscape for fantasy exploration for TOKI and Dragon Yong whose floating journey through Mushroom Woods filled with Beads Clouds and Giant Pink Rose. Dragon YONG sleeps in Lucid Dream while TOKIs float on the Yellow Flower Ring play on the floating Strawberry in a never-ending, ever-moving wonderland depicting a playful, childlike narrative alluding to fantasy and sexual innuendo.
Pink is a paradise depicted through mythological elements of identity. I explore the contemporary pop culture and cyber trend between West and East in the challenge of mixing old mythology and new contemporary myth making. My work is an unnerving mix of cutesy imagery and sexual undertones. The image inserts fantastical narratives from childhood fantasies into a computer generated paradise. TOKI, the chief denizen of this virtual arcadia beckons us into a mythical setting, a post-digital neo-pop-futurism.
After my iteration with mothermother I then invited the artist collective, et. al, who’s work often reflects an interest in utopia/dystopia, and who hugely influenced me during my art school period at Elam. I love the idea of putting three generations of New Zealand women artists in one space.
Hye Rim Lee x mothermother 2020
'Pink', 2013, Inkjet print, Perspex face mounting Edition 1 of 5, 1500 x 844mm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Installation view, Candyland series 2007, C print, automotive paint on custom-made circle frame, 70 x 70cm. Image courtesy of Gareth Moon.
Installation view. Image courtesy of the artist.
Installation view, image courtesy of the artist.
Installation view with Jessica Douglas (right). Image courtesy of the Gareth Moon.
Installation view. Image courtesy of the artist, with Philippa Blair on the right.
Hye Rim Lee has produced many bodies of work arising from her TOKI/Cyborg Project over the past sixteen years, testifying to her unquestioned ability to produce complex works that are conceptually based, content rich and with a distinctive aesthetic.
Exploring instinct, fantasy and sexual innuendo through mythological elements of identity, Lee seeks to create her own paradise in between the organic world of her childhood house and garden, and the inorganic cyber world of fantasy and dream. It’s a zone that exists between the analog and the digital, between dream and reality. Lee negotiates a multitude of binaries from ‘nostalgia/futurism’, to ‘sentience/automatism’ but most significantly addresses the binary of Madonna/whore which cast women’s maternal role and their sexuality as mutually exclusive.
With more than 250 exhibitions worldwide, Lee’s works have become part of major art collections such as SeMA (Seoul Museum of Art) Seoul, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Adam Art Gallery, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa, The University of Auckland, Ernst&Young, Saatchi&Saatchi NZ, Hara Museum Japan, and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA).
Hye Rim Lee is represented by Scott Lawrie Gallery.