Exhibition : LEE Yun-hee : 聖痕: The Stigmata

 [The Stigmata], Manifestation of Dialectical Process

A Korean word for “stigmata”, which refers to wounds that are said to have occurred on the body when Jesus Christ was crucified, or similar wounds that are said to appear on Christian’s body by scientifically inexplicable forces.

LEE Yun Hee has reinterpreted Dante's "THE DIVINE COMEDY," a collection of Western religious/mythological worldviews and narratives, in a "saga of a girl who overcomes life's adversity and pioneers her way to destiny," building her own narrative and worldview rather re-presenting. Through this exhibition [The Stigmata], the artist hopes to bring light to her narrative based on the worldview she has meticulously built, about “desire and anxiety,” the essence of human nature, and “healing”, the process of overcoming them.

La Divina Commedia, 2021, Porcelain, 65 × 35 × 21 cm

The artist produces each unit and completes the work by recombining them, which is similar to the way classical narratives are weaved into the artist's works. In this process, traces of iconography that crosses various boundaries can be seen, ranging from medieval European altars, baroque styles, grotesque patterns, to traditional Buddhist paintings (specifically Gam No Taeng Hwa) and historical paintings. These function as a universal and vast narrative device found in traces of history. If 'desire and anxiety' are viewed as the essence of human nature, these traces would eventually manifest into sacred remains unearthed from the process of overcoming the essence. However, in the present, we no longer discuss the stories of overcoming life and death, that is, the mythological narrative.

At this point, the artist views the process of overcoming the essence as the process of "healing" and newly constructs and recreates the story by implementing diverse methods of visualization. Each work, which is completed with a combination of various demarcated units, seems somewhat heterogeneous and contradictive, but performs as an individual allegory. Through a dialectical process, the viewers are able to reach the artist’s interpretation of “healing” that she intends to convey.

La Divina Commedia, 2022, Porcelain, 33 x 30 cm (Each works)

Life imposes various pains and wounds on men stemmed from desire and anxiety, but as humans grow through the process of pushing through them, desire and anxiety rather become powerful intrinsic driving forces. The wounds and pains may in fact be the stigmata of the process of striving to ultimately reach a better future. The dreamy imagery of the works resembles the moment of breaking free from pāramitā (A Buddhist term for “a world of enlightenment free from all pain and worldly burdens”), of us when we wept vigorously from the intense shock of birth, fiercely fighting against pain of life.

SHY AFTERNOON, 2019, Porcelain, 34 × 34 × 74 cm

"This hurt and pain we are experiencing now is a training to be reborn as a new human being."

-Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī-  

(A representative mystic poet of Persian literature who sings tradition of Sufism. He embodied unconditional divine love and men’s seeking for such in poetry.)

THEO Gallery official Artsy show page : https://www.artsy.net/show/theo-sheng-hen-the-stigmata