The Strangely Wonderful Worlds of JeeYoung Lee

Young South Korean artist JeeYoung Lee is generating quite a buzz for herself in the art world these days, and it's not hard to see why. A recent graduate of Seoul's Hongik University, the artist's dreamy, highly imaginative work surpasses our traditional expectations of photography. Plus, it's totally spectacular to look at.

It's hard to believe it, but Lee's images aren't Photoshopped. Instead, displaying admirable patience, she spends weeks and often months turning her tiny little studio (only 3 x 6 metres) into an unimaginably intricate, detailed set. Once she's captured the essence of the particular dream, desire, nightmare, hope or conflict she had in mind, she places herself within the image, never facing the camera directly — in fact, often with her back to it. The result is a strangely beautiful kind of reality.

JeeYoung Lee is considered an up-and-coming artist in her native South Korea. She won last year's Sovereign Art Prize and has exhibited at Seoul's OCI Museum, the Incheon Foundation for Art and Culture, the Kyoto Photographic Museum in Japan and early next year will open her first European exhibition at France's Opiom Gallery with this ongoing series of self-portraits, entitled Stage of Mind.

Broken Heart

Black Birds

Nightmare

The Little Match Girl

Maiden Voyage

Last Supper

Treasure Hunt

Top image: Resurrection. Story via Colossal.