Hye Rim Lee is a Korean interdisciplinary media artist currently working in Seoul, New York, and Auckland. Her work spans from digital, sculpture and performance practices where she develops an animated character TOKI, to discuss the transformative nature of shifting identity. The work showcases the rise of new technology and the spread of heightened interest in Western consumerism and ideals. Drawing on her transnational background, Hye Rim Lee’s three-dimensional animated videos and photographs explore the interplay between technology and female identity.
Through her artistic endeavours, Lee not only pushes the boundaries of technology and image making but also provokes contemplation on contemporary culture, female issues, cyber culture, gender dynamics, and the influence of new media on tradition.
Lee explores instinct, fantasy and sexual innuendo through mythological elements of identity. Like a bunny, TOKI as a hybrid form of human and bunny in the vision of her imagination, she explores the contemporary pop culture and cyber trend between West and East in the challenge of mixing old mythology and new contemporary myth making.
Her digital print series made from the 3D animation use sophisticated computer programmes to drive the viewer’s thoughts, while mixing the older technique of photography with dazzling 3D digital effects of glossy glass and gold that optimize perspective, texture and reflection.
All of Hye Rim Lee’s artworks displayed at Artbay Gallery are created using the C-Print medium. C-type printing uses a special type of photographic paper that is coated with three layers of silver halide emulsion, one for each primary colour (red, green, and blue). When a digital image is projected onto the paper, the light hits the different layers of emulsion and creates a latent image for each primary colour.
