Soomin Lee

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UNTITLED, Oil and acrylic paint on photo paper, 30” x 40”, 2017

UNTITLED, Oil and acrylic paint on photo paper, 30” x 40”, 2017

UNTITLED, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 11” x 14”, 2017

UNTITLED, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 30” x 40”, 2018

UNTITLED, Oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 36” x 48”, 2017

UNTITLED, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 11” x 14”, 2017

UNTITLED, Oil and acrylic paint on photo paper, 30” x 40”, 2017

UNTITLED, Acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20” , 2018

Artist Statement

I have been driven to create abstract art in non-objective imagery to evoke the contents of my unconscious. Such painting does not reflect any form of conventional reality. It consists of non-recognizable lines, shapes, colors, patterns, and textures. The invisibl, obscure, abstract, unexplained, and unidentified elements and their qualities float within me, layer upon layer, mutating with and colliding against each other throughout my life. I have a strong impulse and passion to make them visible and so to know what they are. First, I struggle to represent them by physical movement: dripping, pouring, gestrual drawing, sanding, and scratching using brush and palette knife. This is the method of automatism, which means creating with unconscious rather than with the conscious mind and reason. It is unidentified elements are transformed into my personal marks. Next, I find interrelationships in each personal mark and in each layer made by accident and add my own conscious designs to these abstract personal marks, giving the painting rational structure. The visual result demonstrates both a tension and a balance between my unconscious and my conscious mind. All the confusion, chaos, abstraction and mystery, both interior and exterior, are eventually changed to form, color, and texture, and I become a painting. The colors of the painting fully reflect my emotional states and personality, so my painting can be rather dark. Pure unconscious instinct makes me deal with beautiful colors, but in darks tones. My ideas about life are implied by color: life is beautiful and worthwhile to live, but the burden to live a life is heavy to me. So, the colors and texture in my painting, the all-important and powerful tool, have a mixed set of messages as they express my emotions and tell my story. It is about the process of finding myself.