K11 Art Foundation is pleased to present STAGE OF MIND, an art exhibition by Korean artist, JeeYoung Lee from 8 November 2014 to 5 January 2015 at K11 art space (B207). As her first exhibition to be housed at Hong Kong, 18 pieces of photography artwork will be displayed, plus one of her dreamy whimsical installation will be reconstructed and brought to the public this time.

Stage of Mind

Since 2007, artist JeeYoung Lee has been shooting the invisible, capturing intangible excerpts of her emotions, her memories and her dreams in whimsical, theatrical manifestations. In Stage of Mind, Lee conjures up a series of ethereal narrative space that houses the tangible materialization of her imagination, which she photographs as a testament to their reality.

The symbolic objects and spectacular displays - meticulously and painstakingly fabricated with weeks and sometimes months of efforts – are used to reenact the scenes of Lee’s life in a metaphorical way. Excluding any ulterior photographic alteration, Lee’s theatrical displays visualise an authentic inner world where unique feelings and experience take centre stage and refuse judgment.

The elaborate act of setting the stage, where the artist places herself at its very centre, is thus a self- imposed meditation of life, through which she deals with her inner-conflicts and exorcises them. Through such self-reflection, Lee finds her relation to society as an individual and identifies the influences she casts and those the society casts upon her.

Ultimately, the work is an act of deliberate objectification of her current status; by dissecting the incomprehensibilities surrounding her, Lee turns them into portents of hope and completes herself.

JeeYoung Lee

Lee graduated from Seoul’s Hongik University in her native South Korea. Recipient of multiple artistic awards including the Sovereign Art Prize (2011), her photographs have already found their way into public collections, such as the Kiyoto Photographic Museum in Japan, the Incheon Foundation for Art and Culture and Seoul’s OCI Museum. In 2013, Stage of Mind has gained a worldwide audience with appearance in prominent international art media in China, UK and the USA, making Lee one of the most promising up-and-rising figures of the Korean art scene.

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