Unbreakable Elements by Jun Lee explores printmaking through materials such as wood, paper, and glass – each chosen for its ability to withstand pressure. These works consider the ways we gather strength after moments of defeat and how we rebuild both individually and collectively amidst ongoing precarity. Lee’s work utilizes animals and the cultural narratives that surround them as an accessible entry point to consider our own social dynamics: we, too, are capable of both ruthless competition and compassionate collectivity in our struggles to survive. The reduction woodcut technique Lee employs to create layered imagery further reflects the themes of resilience and transformation. Each carved decision is irreversible: once material is removed, there is no turning back. What remains is a commitment to progress, an acceptance that life requires us to face the consequences of our choices, adapt, and continue.

Jun Lee (Washington, DC) is a printmaker who works in large format woodcut, utilizing animals as metaphors to convey competition in our daily lives. Lee was awarded the Arts and Humanities Fellowship and DC Art Bank grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She has completed numerous artist residencies and fellowships and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including: West Virginia University (WV), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (TN), Big Medium Gallery (TX), Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (MD), American University Museum (DC), Highpoint Center for Printmaking (MN), Insa Art Center (Seoul, South Korea), Daimler Financial Services Atrium (Berlin, Germany). Lee received her MFA in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art (MI) and her BFA in Illustration, and a Post Baccalaureate in Printmaking from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MN).

My work evokes different facets of competition in our society and the spectrum of coping responses they provoke – from hiding away to preparing for a fight. The animals in my work serve as visual metaphors for the dueling desires and fears that arise under the pressures of survival. Animals have a competitive instinct to survive, which can manifest as isolating individualism, pitting one against the other in a zero-sum game. But animals also provide us with the model of collective safety and companionship in the form of the herd or flock. My work frequently invokes the rooster at various stages of life, from chick to fighting cock. The rooster embodies the complexities of survival, celebrating defiant resilience as well as asking what we lose in the process of fighting to be the last one standing.

Artist Talk with Jun Lee

Saturday, February 14, 1 pm

Inspired by her exhibition Unbreakable Elements, Jun Lee will an artist talk that explores printmaking through materials such as wood, paper, and glass – each chosen for its ability to withstand pressure. She will also address the visual representations in her work which explore the duality of fear and desire.