Jin Lee
August 5-28, 2016
Exploit
Exploit. As a verb it means “to take advantage of; to misuse”, as a noun it means “achievement”. Both definitions involve action. The sculptures in this series represent the tools employed to instigate fundamental change and the actions taken to reach that goal, be it personal or an attempt to generate shifts in social or ideological paradigms.
One can easily fall prey to inertia, to practices that are “cemented in tradition” and in order to break free it may be necessary to commit a fervent act. I see the wedges as agents of change, as the means of engagement. They are the tools at my disposal to be points of contact between myself and the cement blocks — the challenges and difficulties that must be overcome and reordered to reach an objective.
Sculptor Jin Lee, b. 1975, studied sculpture at the University of Maryland and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Lee returned to Maryland in 2012 and currently teaches at Anne Arundel Community College. Lee received the Wharton Award in 2003 and has exhibited her work in San Francisco, Maryland, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. She currently has work on exhibit at The Harvard Institute for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC and a site-specific sculpture at The Sandy Spring Museum in Sandy Spring, MD.
Lee creates abstract work in a range of scales using steel, wood, and mixed media. Her sculptures address concepts of tension, pressure, and the struggle to be free. Her explosive sculptures are comprised mostly of wedge-shaped elements tightly bound between heavy steel plates or trapped in cement and exhibit evidence of the performative aspect behind her concept.
