Jungjin Lee (born 1961)[1] is a Korean photographer and artist who currently lives and works in New York City.[2]
Early life and education
Lee was born in Korea in 1961.[1] She studied calligraphy in childhood and majored in ceramics at Hongik University,[2] graduating with a Bachelor's of Fine Art in 1984. After graduating Lee worked as a photojournalist and later as a freelance photographer.
In 1987, she completed a year-long project documenting the life of an old man who made his living hunting for wild ginseng. This experience motivated Lee to enrol on an MA in photography at New York University in New York City.[2]
Work
While in New York City, Lee worked for the photographer Robert Frank.[2] Later, she took a road trip across the United States. In her travels she encountered the American desert, a landscape that she was deeply moved by and which became the subject of several of her photographic series, including Desert (1990–94), American Desert I–IV (1990–1996), On Road (2000–01), Wind (2004–07) and Remains (2012–). Lee photographs these barren landscapes when they are transformed by the tumultuous weather, discarded refuse, decaying structures and by her own photographic process.
Lee's Unnamed Road (2010–12) was part of This Place.[3]
Photographic process
Lee uses a medium format panoramic camera.[citation needed] She prints on traditional Korean paper which she hand sensitizes with a brush using Liquid Light.[2][4][5] This print is then scanned and Lee further manipulates the image in Photoshop. The resulting image is a high contrast black and white print, in which the indexical brush marks are still visible. Lee effaces the technological capability of her digital camera to communicate her emotional state of mind at the time she takes the photograph to the viewer.[6] This process also results in an image that recalls traditional Asian ink painting.[4]
Recognition
Lee's photographic practice is important within the context of contemporary Korean photography.[7]
Photo scholar and critic Eugenia Parry explores Lee's series through the lens of Buddhist spirituality in the essay that accompanies Lee's photobook Wind. Parry observes that in Lee's photographs she contrasts discarded props of human life with the land, symbolically acting as her on[clarification needed] Buddhist teacher, asking viewers to "view ordinary things, love change, tolerate absolute incomprehensibility. Contemplate the temporal, recognize the celestial".[8]
Photo critic and historian Vicki Goldberg observes that Lee's landscapes represent her own, "introspective states and thoughts."[9] While the majority of Lee's work focuses on the land; in several series she explores other subjects including Pagodas (1998); crumbling Buddhist sculptures, Buddhas (2002); everyday objects, Thing (2003–06) and portraits, Breath (2009–).
Publications
Lee, Jungjin (1988). Lonely Cabin in a Far Away Island. Seoul: Yeolwha-Dang Art.
Lee, Jungjin (1993). Jungjin Lee: The American Deserts. Seoul: Shigak.
Lee, Jungjin (1997). Wasteland. Seoul: Art Space Seoul.
^Sinsheimer, Karen, Tucker, Anne (2009). Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography. New Haven: New Haven: Yale University Press: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. p. 158. ISBN9780300157536.((cite book)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Parry, Eugenia (2009). Ghost Lands in Wind. New York: Sepia. p. unpaginated.
^Goldberg, Vicki (2009). Shorthand Notes for the Spirit in Wind. New York: Sepia. p. unpaginated.
