Into the Nearness of Distance XVIII, 2020 Three layers of cyanotype on gauze, wood, and paint. 26 x 33 x 4.5 inches
Horizon VI, 2021 Ink on stretched paper on wood. Diptych. 72 x 72 inches.
Horizon VII, 2020 Ink on stretched paper on wood. Diptych. 50 x 54 inches
Horizon V, 2021 Ink on stretched paper on wood. Diptych. 72 x 72 inches.
Artist Talk/Performance, with Art Historian and Museum Specialist, Marina Pugliese, and writer, JiaJing Liu. April 8th, 2021.
unsettled: summer mei ling lee
Re.riddle Gallery
April 1-30, 2021
Unsettled is a solo exhibition of new work by Summer Mei Ling Lee that will run from April 1 – 30, 2021. This is part of re.flect, a program series that spotlights one of the gallery’s artists each month.
Curatorial Statement by Candace Huey, Re.riddle Gallery
Multi-media artist Summer Mei Ling Lee contemplates moments of unsettledness vis-à-vis the idea of the “adjacent possible.”* This theory proposes that every individual interaction within an ecosystem has the potential to exponentially increase the diversity of possibilities that follow. Attributes of this matrix of activity may range from notions of chance and expansion, to creation and variation. To this end, the state of being unsettled creates openness to the unexpected.
Through painting, sculpture, short narrative and a series of performances pulled from her Chinese ancestral tradition of bone oracles and bird symbolism, Lee examines this idea of the unsettled moment. The artist documents her experiences of rescuing birds in eloquent short narratives without giving into the temptation of providing any definitive conclusions. The lack of closure situates the reader in a space of uncertainty whilst concurrently positioning them as “writer” thus, imbuing them with agency to navigate through various outcomes. Furthermore, the artwork entails an aspect of simultaneity where variables may coexist without the conventional pressure to land into a single or conclusive narrative.
Resisting reconciliation, Lee asks if acting inside the space of uncertainty is the necessary condition for a meaningful aesthetic moment. In this vein, what is adjacent possible helps us embrace this historical moment as unknown but liberating.
* Adjacent possible is a theory coined by theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman (1995) to explain how biological systems are able to evolve into more complex systems by making incremental changes in their makeup via interaction with other elements.
A Monument to the Unsettled I, 2021 Wooden Box, porcelain, paper, cyanotype, bird rescue narrative. 4 x 4 x 6 inches.
A Monument of the Unsettled III, 2021 Wooden box, acrylic paint, paper, and porcelain. 16 x 12 x 7 inches