[20] Besides this, what matters by June Lee Yu Juan

“One particularly intriguing line of investigation is [June Lee’s] meditation on the visual qualities of Chinese script. In her work, Chinese calligraphic texts are reinterpreted and translated into new, almost architectural forms. The work shifts the viewer’s focus away from calligraphic texts as symbols and their semiotic function, to an appreciation of their pictorial form for their pure visuality.” 

– Artitute

“[June Lee’s] paintings are dreamlike and visually seductive rather than verbally poetic, so driving the viewer to discover a new ethos emerging from the old genre.”

– Intersections Art Gallery

June Lee draws inspiration from Chinese ink practices of Chinese ink painting and calligraphy. It began from her training as a student majoring in Chinese ink painting, where she was encouraged to learn Chinese calligraphy as it is emphasised as the foundation for proficiency in Chinese ink painting. During her studies, she struggled to comprehend the meaning of the calligraphic scripts, which inspired her to create a series of works using Chinese characters taken from the calligraphic scripts.  

June shares:

“I am concerned with the diminishing stature of Chinese ink painting and culture and the desensitisation of today’s youth towards their own ethnicity, culture, and roots.”

In her work, ancient Chinese characters adapted from traditional calligraphy and seal scripts are re-appropriated and manipulated through distortion and rotation, and warped into volumetric masses. They are also overlapped and juxtaposed with geometric shapes. This process is a personal response towards her journey of being a contemporary ink painter who honours the rich traditions of Chinese art, and with a desire to rewrite the past as present, seeking new meanings and possibilities within the traditional art form. The Chinese characters are deliberately misplaced and made incomprehensible, activating the viewer to develop new readings, and rediscover a new yet familiar re-representation of Chinese ink painting and Calligraphy of today.

Biography:
June Lee (b. 1988, Singapore) graduated with a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts from the University of Tasmania, Australia and a Diploma in Fine Art (Chinese ink painting) from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore June’s body of artworks focuses on her interpretation of the diminishing relevance of traditional Chinese ink painting and of today’s younger generations of Chinese Singaporeans’ identity towards their ethnic-based culture and roots. She has dedicated her practice to exploring the traditional art form – Chinese ink painting by incorporating digital techniques and new mediums in her art-making process.

Lee has held exhibitions both locally and abroad, including her solo exhibition “In other words” in 2019 with Intersections gallery, Singapore and a commission by National Gallery Singapore for Wu Guan Zhong’s “Expressions of Pen and Palette” exhibition in 2019. She has exhibited in Singapore and overseas in Indonesia, Australia, Korea and France, demonstrating a consistent and growing presence in her art practice.

Specifications:
– Year: 2019
– Medium: Chinese ink, acrylic and charcoal on rice paper
– Dimensions: 96.5cm x 156.5cm, Framed
– Auction winner can collect Besides this, what matters by June Lee Yu Juan during Checkpoint Celebrates! 2025: The Fourth Trimester Gala, or make shipping arrangements with our team