Page 61 - Beauty Prime Magazine

Jungmin Lee, an accomplished artist from Incheon, South Korea, finds
inspiration in the whimsical realms of childhood, dreams, and family. A
graduate with distinction from ArtCenter College of Design, her work
beautifully blends found and mixed media, storytelling from cherished
memories, and the tactile creation of 3D objects. Her art is a vivid
tapestry of imagination and heartfelt narratives.
on trips to visit big, old trees, such
as the 800 year old Ginkgo tree in
Jangsudong, Incheon, South Korea.
In the beginning, I didn’t know why
we were going to see trees. But as
time went by, these trips became
my memory points to spiritually go
back as the place of family gathe-
ring. This nostalgic warmth is also
connected to my grandparents and visiting
their home. I appreciate their time to cook
delicious foods like Ramyun, soybean paste
soup, seasoned spinach, and more. I remem-
ber when my grandparents brought small
dogs to home on a cold winter evening. I
remember when my family prepared food
and visited the parents of my grandparents
at the cemetery, covered with snow. These
moments are living inside of me, and art
helps to bring me the forgotten past. Becau-
se I am now far away from my grandparents,
this childhood feels like a dream. Drawing,
painting and sculpting makes me remember
what I enjoyed, when I felt a strong emotion,
which lets me slow down in my present life,
and rethink why I want to study art.
What role do dreams play in your creative process,
and how do you incorporate them into your work?
Dreams to me are uncertain, blurry, weird
so it gives me open possibilities to experi-
ment. It can be changed during the thinking
process, or sometimes the new pieces of
another dream come up after sleep. Me-
mory is changing and they are fantastical.
Anything can happen so I appreciate that
dream gives me free ground to start from. It
represents to me less pressure and motivates
me to switch the storyline, draw without a
plan, combine found materials, or maybe
erase and restart.
How do you use mixed media in your artwork, and
what materials do you find most inspiring?
I like to travel in my house to collect, find
new materials, such as trash, recycle bins or
old boxes in the garage. One day, I start with
one object, then maybe the next day, I cut it
out. Another day, I might paint over, or look
over the magazine to find the image. I think
I make it in the process with less plan, and I
like to practice these experiments with dif-
ferent types and scales of the media. These
days, I am also interested in learning more
about watercolor and brush. I enjoy playing
with water and unexpectedness with where
the inks would go and share its feelings.
Can you explain your concept of a “miniature wor-
ld” in your paintings and how it reflects collective
and individual dynamics?
Jungmin Lee captivates
audiences with her profound
storytelling, transforming
ordinary objects into extraor-
dinary visual narratives that
resonate with universal human
warmth.
I think the practice of thinking about
a “miniature” helps me to observe the
world in a simple way or to view from a
far away. The making process is also like
playing with a toy or going back to when I
was young. Inside of the miniature world,
the creatures and houses seemed to feel
safe and open a way to start an adventure.
Miniature drawings or objects become able
to hold in hands, move around, or invite me
to make my own world. I think this process
of creating a small environment gives a co-
ziness and warmth to my mind, and I hope
this feeling could help to share the playful
spirits and healing aspects of art.
How do cultural backgrounds and customs shape
the characters and narratives in your art?
From my memories in Korea, the tradi-
tional foods and ancestral rites with my
family come to my mind. Often, my family
members and their personality became
my starting point to sketch the unknown
creatures or my imaginary friend characters.
In another moment, grandparents become
the main characters who show me the steps
of Jesa, Korean ancestral rituals, or as the
biographed figure by interviewing with
them. The folk tales and traditional music in
Korea help me to learn where I come from,
teach me new languages that were used in
the past, or how ancestors lived their lives.
What psychological observations do you hope to
convey through the interactions between collecti-
ve power and individual power in your work?
To me, collective power guides me the sy-
mpathy that can be made with wider people,
and individual power as the departure from
the personal memory. My work can begin
with my personal backgrounds or interac-
tions within myself. But my bigger hope is
to observe the influences of childhood to
adulthood and the conflicted minds of pe-
ople, which I like to try sharing this diverse
human emotions in art so that one can feel
connected or belong. I hope my work can
help more people to dream and imagine,
especially to feel free in their state of mind.
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