Solo Exhibition, Yoon Lee, at the luggage store, sf, ca

Headlands Center for the Arts Tournesol Awardee
YOON LEE, large scale computer generated paintings

Dates of Exhibition:
July 7 - August 5, 2006

Opening Reception:
Friday, July 7, 2006 6-8pm

Venue:
The luggage store
1007 Market Street (nr 6th)
San Francisco, CA 94103

Telephone:
415. 255 5971

Website:
www.luggagestoregallery.org

Gallery Hours
Wed-Sat. 12-5pm and by appt.

At first glance, Yoon Lee's paintings appear
exuberant, as if her gestures capture the moment when
chaotic forces transform into ordered systems. She
squirts vividly colored acrylic paint out of plastic
bottles to create slick, tactile surfaces filled with
dynamic swarms of abstract shapes. Her bold yet
graceful forms seem swept up in their own fast-paced
trajectories, often set against traces of industrial
architecture. When viewed more closely, however, it
becomes evident that Lee's seemingly spontaneous marks
are actually computer generated and painstakingly
executed. She predetermines her formal vocabulary by
scanning and "mixing" popular media images, drawings,
and photographs of freeways, railroads, and
engineering structures taken along the Port of
Oakland - visual sites and by-products of global
capitalism that the artist experiences on a daily
basis. Her monumental paintings mesmerize with their
synthetic materiality, ultimately evoking the
ambivalent desire we feel when confronted by colorful
plastic consumer goods, beautifully crafted
confections, or successful advertising campaigns. We
are seduced into believing that these glossy,
overdetermined objects possess the power to comfort
us. As the artist explains, "his connection between
the work and consumer goods reflects my interest in
consumption as a strategy to assuage urban anxiety. My
work addresses the relationship between this anxiety
and the speed in which information and signals travel
through space."

Born in 1975 in Pusan, Korea and raised in San Diego,
California, Yoon Lee attended the University of
California, San Diego, where she studied computer
science, mechanical engineering and existential
philosophy before deciding on a career in the arts. To
augment her painting training, she studied for two
years at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia before
completing her BA in Visual Arts at UCSD. She earned
her MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art
Institute in 2005. Since then, her work has been
featured in solo and group shows throughout
California, most recently in San Francisco at the
TransAmerica Center, Crucible Steel Gallery, The Lab,
Hang Gallery, Diego Rivera Gallery, and Catharine
Clark Gallery, where her paintings in the 2006 "Moxie"
exhibition garnered critical acclaim. In 2005 her work
was selected by Arts Benicia for "Cream From the Top"
an exhibition highlighting the most promising
graduates from Bay Area MFA programs. Lee was awarded
2005 residencies at both Headlands Center for the Arts
as part of her Tournesol Award and at Idyllwild Arts
near Los Angeles as a participant in their "Painting's
Edge" series.

--Lydia Matthews,
Associate Professor of Visual Studies, California
College of the Arts

The Tournesol Award sponsored by Headlands Center for
the Arts was established by an anonymous donor to
recognize one emerging artist each yeare whose primary
medium is painting. The goal is to provide the
artist with the financial and community support to
assist their artistic development in the critical
years after school. The award includes a cash
stipend, a one year residency at the Headlands Center
for the Arts and a solo exhibition at a Bay Area
venue. [(www.headlands.org)]

the luggage store is a non profit multidisciplinary
arts organization est. in 1987, with three venues in
downtown San Francisco: the luggage store gallery at
1007 Market, the luggage store annex (aka The 509
Cultural Center) at 509 Ellis and Cohen Alley (a
green community commons for public art and social
interventions). The Luggage Store's vital exhibition,
performing arts, public arts and arts education
programs are dedicated to broadening social and
aesthetic networks by encouraging the flow of images
and ideas between different cultural and economic
communities. (www.luggagestoregallery.org)