Hye Rim Lee is an Korean interdisciplinary media artist currently working in Seoul, New York, and Auckland. Lee's animation questions new technology’s role in image-making and representation. Her work has developed and grown with critical exploration and has conceptually evolved through the representation of the character TOKI, in her ongoing – since 2001 – TOKI Project. Her work is ambitious, expansive and conceptually and technically honed; each new project surpassing the previous genesis of TOKI.
Lee's 3D animation deals with the world of virtual relationships, using sophisticated computer programmes to drive the viewer’s thoughts, while mixing the older technique of photography with dazzling 3D digital effects of glossy glass that optimize perspective, texture and reflection. Lee's photos and video installations tell a fantasy tale based on an intermingling of Eastern and Western popular culture and the study of new technologies and how they influence tradition. She is involved in critical exploration of questions dealing with modern visual culture from a complex point of view in which different approaches are used.
Drawing on her multinational background, Hye Rim Lee’s three-dimensional animated videos and photographs explore the interplay between technology and female identity. Through her manga-like figures with their lithe feminine bodies and skintight clothes; her work encompasses exaggerated sexual features more characteristic of Western feminine ideals. These figures stand amidst glassy dragons and phallic forms in blank cyberspaces. The feminizing constraints of the figures’ bodies and the male signifiers reference the conditions of digital production, as Lee views digital media as a male-dominated field. Its creations are therefore subject to the male gaze and its attendant desires.
Hye Rim Lee has exhibited at Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea, Max Lang New York, Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin, Germany, Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver, MoCA Shanghai, Today Art Museum Beijing, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai; MOCA Taipei, Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Norway, Fundacio Joan Miro Barcelona, Spain, Wereld Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands, San Jose Museum of Art, USA, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Korea, Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), Seoul, Korea, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Govett Brewster Art Gallery New Plymouth, New Zealand. Lee has been part of several collateral exhibitions in the Venice Biennale; "Glasstress", Fondazione Berengo Art Center, “Singularity”, Decentral Art Pavilion Venice Edition, Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, “Light house +” at San Clemente Palace Kempinski, and “Future Pass”, Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana, Venice, Italy.
Lee is the recipient of the Asia Fund, Creative New Zealand and was a finalist for the 25th Annual Wallace Awards. Her work is collected by Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Korea, C-Collection, Principality of Liechtenstein, Galerie Volker Diehl in Berlin, Byron Aceman Collection (BAC) in Canada, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, E&Y corporate collection and Hara Museum in Tokyo, Japan.
