Today we’d like to introduce you to Jungmin Lee.
Hi Jungmin, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am an Illustration Design student minoring in Creative Writing at ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena. I was born in Incheon, South Korea, and I came to California when I was in 9th grade.
Since I was young, I was curious about the mind and imaginative world, which was inspired by family, younger siblings, and trips to visit big, old trees. By visiting trees with family, the fresh air and spiritual energy of the roots motivated me to look back at my surroundings, to be closer with nature and to appreciate the small moments by seeing the sky together. These memories and conversations are appearing in my ideation and storytelling process.
I started to attend ArtCenter in Spring 21, with Product Design major, where I found interest in designing the objects to help people and making dimensional shapes with hands. By participating in the Illustration’s Studio Visit Zoom, I wanted to study deeper with storytelling and the memories of childhood that Illustration shares. I began to study Illustration in Summer 21, participating in Berlin Study Away in Summer 22, which opened the new possibilities of depicting emotions as opera stage sets.
I use visual languages that are motivated by nature, children, memory and folk art. I would like my works to reflect the honest minds of people, heal one’s emotions, and share the encouragement for dreamers. To achieve these goals, my process is based on experimental interpretation, the use of mixed media, and 3-dimensional objects. I am currently exploring with printmaking, bookmaking, poster design, and stage design.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I was interested in being in a dream and time to remember the memories. Therefore, I attempted to illustrate my interests through drawings and crafting with my hands. I struggled on how to translate my passion into one category of study or major, such as Product, Illustration, Environmental, or Film, which are inspirational to me to learn about their ways to communicate the message from 2-dimensional paper, 3-dimensional space, and the hybrid of diverse studies within imaginative four dimension. Sometimes, I felt unstable to explore new ways that I have not tried before, but the encouragement and advice from family, friends, and instructors to be in the occurring process rather than the appearance of result support me to try more.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Currently, I am drawing, painting, making 3-dimensional objects, and applying these ideas with stage sets, posters, writings and books. I am interested in the lost dreams and inner mind and to illustrate the story with experimental spirits on remembering childhood and forgotten memories with people.
For example, Der Sandmann (The Sandman) opera stage design project in Berlin Study Away taught me to explore the emotional storytelling through the space and performers. I used paper and wires to build characters and props based on a tale The Sandman written by E.T.A. Hoffman, and I tried to depict the raw and psychological theme from quotes. This stage set opened my idea to unify art and design with my interests of paintings and sculpting, which continues to my current application of storytelling to daily life, like imaginary posters for museums, brand image design, and printmaking.
In the recent term of Spring, I learned new techniques of printmaking, such as Etching, Chine Colle, Photo Transfer, Xerox Print, Woodblock, and Screenprinting to apply my images influenced by my family, observation in daily life, and ideation for stage act. I practiced combining handwritten letters and writings with images to help to share my thoughts and human-made quality inside. This word + image exploration continued with sketch note projects, where I used paintings and note-taking to share the information from the reading. Furthermore, I experimented with collaborating my images for an imaginary brand design, ET Burger, through art posters, logos, packages, and mock-ups for merchandise and tray. This brand project opened my views to share the possibility of sharing the story through food and a playful environment. I would like to learn about new approaches of art and design and to further be curious about the making process with experiments.
What’s next?
I would like to explore more with the theme of stage set projects, expanding with physical costume design, textiles, face masks and sound. I believe it would be a very fun process to apply the drawings, paintings and sculptures to a different scale and new approach with the character ideation from paper. I am also interested in making hybrid opera stages based on the emotions and lyrics of Korean Indie and Band music to apply the strong emotions of opera collaborating with new music genres and art.
I would like to learn more about sculptures like ceramics and to learn about performances and video making, too. I am looking forward to imagining my current interests, trying to remember my childhood passion, to experiment how to share the stories and to heal people’s minds.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leejungmin1213/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jungmin-lee-5153a4204/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oBcX6V5eEA
