“ SHELL”

–by LEE Hwanseo

Artist Biography

Hwanseo Lee was born in South Korea. He moved to India with his older brother to study when he was 14 years old. In the art class, he learned how to gently handle the paper. However, he started to tear the paper to make sculpture.

He observes skin of human body and mimic the part of body. In the process of imitation, he represents his duplicity and pretense. Through the fake shell of his body, he tries to see his flaws.

Artist Statement

Art is a language and tool to express myself. During the producing the art piece, I fully concentrate on myself and the artwork. The art contains certain value and the value can be a visual language what the artist intended to mean, and also the beauty of the art. I interest in communicating through art and I like to find what the artist tried to say through the art piece.

The paper is a basic material of art. Everyone is using the paper to draw and write on it. Also, my art teacher taught me to handle the paper as my body. However, I refuted the teaching and started to tear the paper and make my body with the torn paper pieces. This was just a simple refutation against teacher, but it was interesting invent. I glue the soft paper pieces one by one with my hands and the paper pieces form a part of human body. This process is very slow and need a lot of concentration, and this process make me feel like I am touching a real skin of human. The torn line of the paper looks like a scar and after I finish making the figure, it is full of the scars.

In this art piece, I baldly show the material and intension. I made a self-portrait with torn paper pieces. During the process, I look at my face, touch my face and observe my face. The process is like meditation; gives long time to see myself and to see the flaws of myself, and it leads me to think about the past when I was younger and how I am right now. Making myself realistic and mimicking myself is a way of accepting myself.

After completing the art piece, it is full of torn marks of the paper. However, I remain the marks without covering the surface of the sculpture, because the marks are visual expression of invisible flaws that I tried to avoid and hide.

The use of mirror is a metaphorical expression of the whole process of acceptance as I mentioned above. Through the journey, I wanted to show that by accepting myself (the parts that I wanted to hide and avoid), I can be myself.