ACO Artist Discussion with Jun Lee

Jun Lee (Washington, DC) is a printmaker who works in large-format woodcut, utilizing animals as metaphors to convey competition in our daily lives. Lee was awarded Arts and Humanities Fellowship and DC Art Bank grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities among several other residencies and fellowships including Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VA), Zygote Press (OH), Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory (OH), Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (MD), Montgomery College Takoma Park/Silver Spring (MD), Penland School of Crafts (NC), Lee Arts Center (VA).

Lee’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including: West Virginia University (WV), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (TN), Big Medium Gallery (TX), Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (MD), Art Gym Denver (CO), LUX Center for the Arts (NE), American University Museum (DC), Artists and Makers Studios (MD), Highpoint Center for Printmaking (MN), Maryland Institute College of Art (MD), Montgomery College (MD), Purdue University Galleries (IN), Insa Art Center (Seoul, South Korea), Daimler Financial Services Atrium (Berlin, Germany). Lee received her MFA in Print Media in 2007 from Cranbrook Academy of Art (MI) and her BFA in Illustration in 2002, and a Post Baccalaureate in Printmaking in 2004 from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MN).

Artist Statement
My work evokes different facets of competition in our society and the spectrum of coping responses they provoke – from hiding away to preparing for a fight. The animals in my work function as a visual metaphor for the dueling desires and fears that arise under the pressures of survival. Animals have a competitive instinct to survive, which can manifest as isolating individualism, pitting one against the other in a zero-sum game. But animals also provide us with the model of collective safety and companionship in the form of the herd or flock. My work frequently invokes the rooster at various stages of life from chick to fighting cock. The rooster embodies the complexities of survival, celebrating defiant resilience as well as asking what we lose in the process of fighting to be the last one standing.