Norway,portrate,daily
Lee’s new film “Just After Christmas” was completed when he participated in the Norwegian residency program. His work of using everyday photographs to conduct various experiments makes him think about ‘changing and not changing easily, leaving and being left behind.’
photographic double life
How many inflection points exist in the working timeline of Lee Ji-an (a.k.a. former Lee Hyang-an)?” Writers occasionally visit their homepages to see what they are doing these days, and there is a writer who surprises them every time, Lee Ji-an. When it was called “Lee Hyang-an,” he attempted a still life full of primary colors that caused tension, with the work of adding branches to the self-portrait. On the other hand, the object was placed on top of a photograph of the city’s “unpretty look,” which was not noticed, and the scenery and objects encountered within the writer’s radius of action were given a unique formality. “Just After Christmas,” which was introduced as “Izian” over time, highlighted three-dimensional and surrealism using everyday scenery, and at the same time established new narratives. At first glance, each seems to have its own individuality, but overall, it maintains the basic framework of “media experimentation.” To begin with, we can say that we change common themes wisely, such as the word Jian, which means “eye of wisdom.”
Lee Ji-an works with a focus on the photographic properties of ‘double nature.’ The key to work is to go back and forth between truth and falsehood and to cross two and three dimensions. It was not an experimental approach to photographic properties from the beginning. This is evidenced by the initial Self Portrate+Something” work, which contains the meaning of “People are born with a nature that does not change easily, but grow with branches extended in various unexpected directions due to the environment and experience.” While working on painting-like works, Lee reportedly agonized over the differences between painting and photography. The answer to this is that if a painting is an expression of something inside, a photograph is a medium that draws an external element inside. Back to the initial work, the actions of people focusing only on meaning stimulated the author’s curiosity, even though the photographs were added with some experiments (planar →body →plane). It is natural that the original form changes when the cutting and combining are repeated, and it would have been impressive for those who know that the photo can no longer be objectively reproduced. From then on he began to dig deeper into the duality of photography.
going backwards up the flowing river.
If the initial “self-portrait + various” work was completed in the studio, the latest work is set in real space. The way of working hasn’t changed much. I just pressed the shutter without any particular meaning, as the eye glances as I walked down the street. Afterwards, the object is sensibly placed on top of the picture, and then the picture is taken again to finish the work. The result is strange, but it seems that daily life has turned into a fantasy. In other words, the surface (shell) of the picture and the actual object met to create the surface (shell) again. In other words, the two and three dimensions meet to become two dimensions, and the real and real have become fictitious. Most of all, it is impressive that they have implemented tricking eyes with their dexterity, not by clicking on Photoshop. Just after Christmas is no different. It combines everyday materials such as stone, glass, and food onto pictures taken in Norway. The difference is that, unlike the existing work that was reconstructed (croped) within the frame of a square picture, this work revealed the existence of the photo in the front. It is a kind of frame-like composition, which allows viewers to think about changes in photos that are given material properties and how to own them as non-materials.
He works with an interest in the duality (truth and lie, two-dimensional and three-dimensional, etc.) of Lee Ji-an’s photographs. Putting an object on top of a picture taken and taking another picture is the key to the work. He participated in a number of exhibitions, including individual exhibitions such as Just After Christmas