Hui Chi Lee; #11-2.
“Hair and chopsticks are motifs. In Chinese tradition, lengthy hair signifies the duration of a life span, an expanse of time of which we are often hardly aware. While we may acknowledge the finitude of life, time is envisioned as somehow endless. People favor stability and continuity. When one’s comfortable status is threatened or entangled by a chaotic condition, however, ambivalence is often a result. Pairs of red chopsticks act as unknown teasers— do these ambiguous teasers lift, pull, and twist the unbounded hair to snarl or to free the mannequins? What factors are driving these entanglements? My works serve as a visual riddle for viewers to decipher.
— Hui Chi Lee
As her principle subject matter, Lee’s current body of work incorporates the human form and hair to explore dilemmas in human relationships. Her primary media include graphite and mechanical lead pencils which are used because of their unique ability to capture the subtleties and details that she seeks to emphasize. To transcend the boundaries of two-dimensional art, Lee has printed her drawn images onto textiles and incorporated human hair in site-specific installations.