Duane Reed Gallery: Friday, 19 October 2012

Genetic Building Block Series - Grey Segment, 2012 

Jiyong Lee
Opening Friday, October 19th
Reception from 5:00 - 8:00 PM

Jiyong Lee’s “Segmentation Series” is inspired by his fascination with cell division and the journey of evolution that starts from a single cell and multiplies a million times over to become a life.  Lee works with glass that has transparency and translucency; two qualities that perfectly portray the metaphorical clarity and mystery of life sciences and, through these shapes and forms, serves as a representation of cells that symbolize the building blocks and start of life.

The artist explores geometrically created internal and external forms that become the metaphor for genes and cells through their complex composition.  This “Genetic Building Block Series” expands the inquiry through a variety of puzzle-like blocks of shapes, colors and composition suggesting the unlimited variations within life structures.

The uniquely refined translucent glass surface accentuates the mysterious qualities of cells and, on a larger scale, the cloudiness of our futures.  Jiyong Lee’s “Segmentation Series” is quiet, yet powerful, seductive, yet elegantly formal.  While working with a solid material such as glass through cutting, lamination, carving and refining the surface, the artist seems to magically create work that is both beautiful and deeply invested with meaning.

Also Opening October 19th
Nancy Newman Rice

Euclidian geometry as the skeleton of the empirical experience is nothing new, Poussin and Cezanne both seized upon this method of pictorial organization through subtle designs and simplified spatial effects. My Reflection series were compilations of geometric patterns that the winter sun produced as it filtered through horizontal blinds on a blank wall, thus defining spatial limits. Defining space with a geometric skeleton produced rectangular grid work of scaffolding which then described the interior architecture of sacred spaces in cathedrals, churches, and mosques. As I worked, the buildings eventually disappeared as if erased by time, leaving geometry as a sacred artifact.

These exhibitions run through Saturday, December 8, 2012

4729 McPherson Ave

Saint Louis, MO 63108