Ro2art opens in their newest gallery space on Bataan in the Tin District with the vibrant and energetic large-scale paintings by Yuni Lee are much more than abstract works of art. They move beyond the pictorial gesture, the expressionistic and sentimental use of color, and the purely formal intention, to capture collective paradigms of contemporaneity. The patterns selected by the Dallas-based artist in Mindscapes unfurl on the canvases, repeating and interrupting, merging to create intricate networks. They embody a distinctive aspect of present-day reality: the interconnection between nature and technology.
In this series of 14 paintings displayed at Ro2 Art Gallery, Yuni Lee manages to create a visual bridge between natural and human-constructed worlds. The diversified shapes draw on both the repertory of organic elements and technology. Stylized forms of flowers, branches, fruits, and leaves blend with the cold geometry of circuit boards, microchips, and electronic devices. Lee juxtaposes abstract and instinctive forms with rigid programmed designs through a rhythmic and playful approach; she mixes colorful brush strokes with modular grids, revealing the interdependent relationship between natural and artificial structures. All in one glance.
Mindscapes is a refined work of assemblage: piece by piece, like an interlocking puzzle, it composes hybrid landscapes in which nature and technology are more and more synchronized. Considered as a whole, the solo exhibition questions the hierarchies between humans and the environment. It invites us to consider a more harmonious and balanced interplay between the parts. It is a sensitive wake-up call to be more aware of the anthropic impact on nature.
Yuni Lee realizes the entire exhibited body of work between 2021 and 2023, prompted by urgent ecological issues. However, the recent series also demonstrates the refined technical skill of this emerging mixed-media artist. Her large-scale paintings combine different techniques and materials, with a surprisingly multidisciplinary and multimodal approach: from painting and photography to experiment with printmaking and drawing techniques
Not only that but Lee’s mindscapes are also hybrid landscapes in terms of cultural references. Lee, born in South Korea and educated at the University of North Texas in Dallas, manages to mix Western and Eastern visual traditions, creating profoundly multicultural artworks. Her paintings draw on Korean folk art, particularly Minhwa, characterized by simplicity and purity of forms. Like these traditional itinerant artists, Lee composes a repertory of natural shapes and stylized botanical forms, in which explosive spots of color are juxtaposed with graphic and linear marks, typical of printmaking style and engravings. Lee’s ornamental patterns echo Korean visual imagery and blend with traces of abstract and modernist art, creating a distinctive cultural syncretism.
Among the many remarkable pieces on display at the Ro2 Art, mention must be made of the monumental Aurea Lux (Golden Light). The giant painting stands out due to its golden background and extended format. The organic pattern merges with pixelations and checkerboards that hint at the digital world, composing a kind of imaginary map. Whether a glittering decorative frieze reminiscent of Klimt-style mosaics, or a monumental conceptual planisphere, Aurea Lux (Golden Light) opens up to multiple influences.
The most interesting and innovative aspect of Yuni Lee’s artistic practice is precisely her spontaneous ability to synthesize and integrate. Organic and geometric, natural and technological, and traditional and contemporary elements merge to create hybrid landscapes, which do not lose the fragments of their individual identities but create a new one together. Mindscapes are mapping -genetic? geographical? – of an interconnected world with a constantly changing DNA. Yuni Lee’s ‘maps’ of blossoms and circuitry have the potential to render this articulated complexity in a single image: a unified, symbiotic environment in search of its new internal balance.
featured image: rising dawn, 2022, mixed media on canvas, 48 × 48 in
Yuni Lee: Mindscapes
Ro2 Art Gallery, Dallas