Yae Jee Min is an interdisciplinary artist. Using intersected methodologies of painting and craft, she investigates nostalgia through abstraction and materiality. Through whimsy and childish haphazard zones, she create spaces in which memories, nostalgia and identity both engage and entangle with one another. Whether it is dealing with specific moments of domestic spaces, sleep deprivation, mental illness, and femininity; her work confronts these spaces of familiarity with whimsicality to allow viewers into the moment safely, allowing polemic thoughts to be buffered by notions of blanket warmth. Her work has been exhibited internationally and nationally including Seoul Museum of Arts, Torrance Art Museum, and DfbrL8r Gallery.
Chaos and high confusion is a rampant part of me. This disorientation demands a constant need for comfort. Therefore longing for comfort is central to my work. However the path to comfort is not linear. Often, what is safe does not bring peace, but more pandemonium. This idea of comfort, presents itself through various exploration of nostalgia. Nostalgia takes physical form as manifestation of recollecting memory.
I explore nostalgia by creating paintings that can become vessels for this sentiment. I utilize various processes by using techniques such as hand dying, sewing, and collaging. By fusing non-traditional materials such as fusible films and sequins in a more traditional painting practice, my work is vibrant fusion that embodies layers and soft haze of memories. Often I work with materials that have translucency to create depth. Mercurial property of memories is recognized as the objects I make, changes in color by light.
Yonder Chroma 1997 2019, Silkscreen, sequins, heat transfer dyes, chiffon
SoCal/Bundang remix 2019, heat press and dye transfer on cotton
