Today we’d like to introduce you to Sungjae Lee.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
Firstly, I always tell people how my name phonetically sounds like ‘Song-Jay; a bluejay’s song.’ When I came to the US in late 2012 for my study, I came across a school colleague at CalArts in the hallway, and she told me that it is a beautiful name only hearing how it sounded like. Since that moment, I often introduce myself Song-Jay to help people remember me in the easier way.
I am from Korea, Seoul, and currently living in Los Angeles. It has been about 5-6 years here considering I went back to Korea occasionally back and forth. I grew up in an ordinary family, father, mother, older brother, lucky(puppy), and me. When I was young, my dream was more like becoming a cartoonist, so I used to doodle, scribble and daydream a lot. Some people encouraged me by telling me I was quite talented, so I kept pushing myself to go to a nice university program to learn cartoons, comics, and animations. It was funny; however, I did not make good results, so I got over ten denial letters from so many universities and colleges. I even took another year off to only take the university test once again.
In 2005, I ended up joining a cartoon & animation program in a southern part of Korea, and I found myself that how fascinating the field of fine arts was rather than the one I was supposed to study. Without any big maps or plans, I was getting eager to become a painter, but obviously, I didn’t have any idea how to deal with images, concepts, nothing in my mind. So, simply, the only thing I could do was combining landscape images with animation techniques. That is how I started my career, I guess. And now I am becoming a fine artist that I was dreaming of.
Please tell us about your art.
Mainly, there are two flows in my practice: landscape-based abstract moving images, and nylon thread installations.
Speaking of the former, abstract videos, I gather multiple impressions from certain scenery, including changes of time and distance between the view and me. So, I intend to create images that are slowly, subtly transforming, but intrinsically they represent diverse-partial characters from the same origin. This sounds a bit serious, but actually, I got this idea from a silly experience.
The first sold piece I made was a figurative-moving forest image, played on a TV. There were tiny people and animals move around in the forest, and the duration was 3 minute-long. The client was happy to see the piece in his office; however, he told me a critical issue about it after two years; he was not able to display the short, repetitive video with all the predictable motions anymore. It was such a shock to me, and I had to think about what I was doing again since then. I visited real mountains and forests in person to observe them very carefully. I started taking the essence of extremely delicate movements at a distance and focused the relationship between gradual transformations of the entire forms and their microscopic details. And they became abstract.
Regarding the installation projects, they also have a small story. In 2016, I had a short interview by bringing actual works. Since I was mostly creating digital videos, all I had was a few pieces of drawings and a USB flash drive. During the interview, I just realized that that USB drive was not meant to be in the situation, because there was nothing could run it there. After the interview, I wandered around the street by blaming how stupid I was. It was a cold winter, and a terrifying thought slid by me; “What if my works don’t exist but are only in the virtual world?”
Since that moment, I tried to look for a way that I could possibly manifest my works in the real world. I wanted to keep the conceptual structure that explores the paradoxical relationship between forms and details with a subtle motion, and I finally made my first physical installation that has the qualities of drawing images being moved by wind using painted nylon thread in the air.
As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
Hrmmm… It is a hard question. I honestly don’t know. Haha.
Rather than sticking to a grand and ultimate definition of “Success,” I convince myself not to be frustrated in the middle of a project. There are literally tons of things I have to think about besides artworks: apt rent, my broken car, and family and friends who I barely talk to due to my carelessness. So, it is the best achievement for me to finish a project that I am currently wrestling with.
Also, this interview looks a big breakthrough for me!!
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
I am currently preparing a group exhibition, at Southern Utah Museum Art with compelling Korean artists. Its opening will be this October 12th, and the exhibition will run for around three months.
Also, at the end of this month, there is a media art event in London, the Lumen Art Festival, but I won’t be able to join it due to the group show preparation.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sungjaelee.com
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credit:
Funded and promoted by Hyundai Motors.
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