Artist Hye Rim Lee
A series of digital photography
Year: 2021
Medium: C print, custom made circle frame, auto-motive paint (Edition 1 of 10)
Dimensions: 22.5 in (diameter)
Original Artwork Price: $6,000
When Lee experienced personal trauma from losing her sister to cancer, her interests moved to themes of life and death. TOKI evolves into the character of the Black Rose Queen, transitioning within the imaginative space as well as into the artist’s life as she turned to faith. The Black Rose Queen resists passive readings of TOKI as a sensual objectified female and connects to a more personal narrative, exploring ideas of isolation, oppression, lost love, hopelessness, and darkness of human mortality with the sensibility of imagination. Artist Note “ My intention is to create a sense of overwhelming emotion, aroused by the reflection and refraction of the texture of the animation, by placing a large diamond in the background. Black Rose deals with the identity shift and eternity of mortals. It is an infinite dream multiplied and mirrored with its reflection and refraction of one’s never-ending search for paradise. It’s a question about searching for eternal life.”
