Flowers are one of the most familiar subject matters to the artist.
It is probably because flowers are the plants that people love the most. To still-life painters, flowers are favorite materials as well. Since long time ago, many Eastern-style painters picked flowers as main subjects in oriental paintings. Painting flowers were considered as a new separate genre – ‘Hwa Hye’ – and were highly treated. Those paintings did not merely compliment the beauty of flowers but flowers in those paintings played a superb role in delivering artists’ thoughts.
A vast field of flowers in Younghee Lee’s works play similar roles containing symbolic representations. When I look at her paintings, I fall into dreamy beauties that flowers carry. Flowers seem to emit flash in the artist’s paintings, and they glow in a way that sways little by little. I can feel the atmosphere that the monotonic color of whole screen delivers.
The field of flowers in the mist might represent our lives. We dream our futures as clear as bright colors of flower fields, but we encounter clouded uncertainties in our daily lives. As an effort to clarify those uncertainties, Younghee Lee presents chairs.
Locating chairs in the middle of the painting shows artist’s intentions clearly. Exquisite chairs in hazy background maximizes three-dimensional effects. A pair of chairs drawn with tonal contrast seem to symbolize yin and yang. Artist’s intention to establish a clear indicator in life is reflected in her artwork.