Lea Lee

Since childhood, I have loved to imagine. In my own imaginative world, there was no pain or sorrow, and it was a space where everything I wished was actually realized just like magic. However, the imagination in my head could not be taken or stored like a photograph, and just as memories may be forgotten someday. The moments of my imagination were also not clearly memorised as time passed by. In order to overcome the limit of imagination, I started drawing scenes of my imagination one by one. The result of my imaginations are my artworks in this exhibition. Each of the artworks capture moments of my imagination.

I have chosen 9 artworks for this exhibition. The main theme and the determined purpose of my exhibition was to deliver my recorded emotion and tell the stories about me that makes viewers empathize with my experiences. To express various feelings, I used different kinds of materials for each artwork. I used watercolor, color pencil, gouache paint, acrylic paint, charcoal, digital media etc. Each material has their own characteristic, and to exaggerate the texture of material, I had to apply different techniques. The first main artwork, ‘A girl in the cage ’, is the work that expresses the psychological state of my past in the most detail. The inspiration of this artwork is from my past artwork, I felt a lot of regret on the result of a past artwork because it had lower-quality than what I wanted to express. Accordingly, I decided to use plaster as my new material for this artwork to solve previous problems. The biggest challenge that I had to face during this project was drying the sculpture without cracks. Through some research and the understanding of plaster’s characteristics, I figured out how to control the cracks while drying. Through this experience, I learned that understanding the characteristics of material is mostly important to successfully express the artwork.

The other artwork in this exhibition is ‘Friends’. I used color pencil for this artwork. However, I had to face a lot of challenges with color pencil since it wasn’t my favorite material. When I compose the design and planning about the materials, I noticed that I always use my favorite materials which are acrylic and gouache. Since I always liked to work on huge sizes of paper or canvas, I unintentionally avoided using color pencils. I didn’t want to be limited with materials so I decided to face the hardship with unfamiliar materials. However, when I searched about the techniques and applied them to my artwork, I found advantages of color pencil which I could focus on little details with. Furthermore, it could express its texture in many different ways, with various techniques. Through this experience I began enjoying using various materials and studying it.

‘Prejudice and Oppression’ is also another artwork that is chosen for this exhibition. In the process of this artwork, I had a lot of challenges since I decided to only use black and white. Furthermore, since I’m using a limited color range, I had to create the mood of the artwork with a layer of each different material. At first, I was afraid to add layers because of the worry of ruining the artwork. However, I found it fun and gained a sense of joy when the layer is successfully rendered on the artwork. Then, the fear of adding layers was completely eliminated. Through these experiences, I was able to go through my challenges and learn from the hardships.

My artworks contain stories of my life so far, which also represents my growth process, so they will be displayed considering the order I have drawn. The space of my exhibition looks similar to the room. Following the structure of the room, the stories of my imagination are hanging on the wall with the order of my growth. In this exhibition, I want to communicate with the audience by expressing imaginations in my mind with various inspirations from the emotions of certain moments. I hope my emotions and messages will be delivered well through this exhibition.