Kyung-Lim Lee.SIGMA GALLERY Kyung-Lim Lee investigates the legacy of abstraction through the filter of Asia and American cultures. The paintings and drawings in her most recent show reflected a concern with series and process, but they also depended on her appropriation of Chinese characters. For works such as Circle and Ellipse ellipse, closed plane curve consisting of all points for which the sum of the distances between a point on the curve and two fixed points (foci) is the same. It is the conic section formed by a plane cutting all the elements of the cone in the same nappe. #2, 1993, Ellipse #1, 1991, and Trapezoid trapezoid, closed plane figure bounded by four line segments, or sides, two of which are parallel and two of which are nonparallel. The parallel sides of a trapezoid are called bases and the nonparallel sides legs; in an isosceles trapezoid the legs are of equal , 1991, Lee began with a Chinese-Korean dictionary, selecting ten characters of the ten-stroke type. Working with the written Chinese Written Chinese refers to the written symbols used to represent spoken Chinese, along with rules and conventions about how they are arranged and punctuated. These symbols are commonly known as Chinese characters (traditional/simplified Chinese: 漢字/汉字; and its direct Korean translation, she set about exploring the meaning of each character from a personal perspective, devising charts and diagrams to record the duality inherent in ideographic id·e·o·graph n. See ideogram. id  e·o·graph ic adj. structure. As a group, the characters denoted a whole range of things from the concrete to the abstract--from body, skull, fighting, leaping, and chignon chi·gnon n. A roll or knot of hair worn at the back of the head or especially at the nape of the neck. [French, from Old French chaignon, chain, collar, nape, from Vulgar Latin to spirit, ghost empty, high, and melancholy. For Lee, the character for chignon not only is a female symbol associated with the traditional hairstyle of young female servant in Korea, but also recalls the geometry of Ellipse #1. With its wavy folds, the quasi-organic ellipse was suggestive of suggestive of Decision making adjective Referring to a pattern by LM or imaging, that the interpreter associates with a particular–usually malignant lesion. See Aunt Millie approach, Defensive medicine. the natural world. What makes Lee's work spring to life is her assured handling of materials--graphite, pencil, ink, acrylic, oil, and watercolor--that animate he imagery, lending her forms a compelling vitality. This quality is readily apparent in Circle and Ellipse #2, a triptych in pencil and ink that has the monumental presence of a painting. As with her other works, the contrast betwee the soft ellipse and crisp circle creates a chain of cosmic associations that point toward an almost religious preoccupation with the cycles of the sun and moon. |
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