Maiden Voyage by JeeYoung Lee

About

Since 2014, NOW Gallery in Greenwich Peninsula has established itself as London’s go-to destination for discovering new talent and showcasing cutting-edge installations by some of the most exciting names in art, design and fashion including Yinka Ilori, Manjit Thapp, Joy Yamusangie, Nicholas Daley, Mowalola and Molly Goddard.

On 23 June 2022, the gallery is delighted to present Maiden Voyage, a new art commission by South Korean multidisciplinary artist and designer JeeYoung Lee, which will see the space infiltrated by a forest of hanging ginkgo leaves, while a monumental paper boat and paper aeroplanes float through the air. 

The profoundly poetic and evocative artist commission interweaves the past with the present while meditating upon heritage, relationships, literature and nature, creating an altogether dream-like cerebral landscape of Lee’s childhood memories. 

JeeYoung Lee says: “The idea came to me when I saw the streets covered with ginkgo tree leaves in fall. Autumn is a season that foretells that the year is about to end and the fallen and coloured leaves announce the passage of time. Our lives are filled with various adventures both big and small. I wanted to express these adventures in the form of a boat sailing through everyday life, as if travelling through the mundane toward that something, somewhere, gradually getting to that goal little by little.”

NOW Gallery Curator Jemima Burrill says: “There is an intrigue and complexity to JeeYoung Lee’s art which fills the places it encounters. The narrative behind her work leaves space for the viewer to transpose their own reading and interpretation onto the installation. NOW Gallery is very excited to be working with this South Korean artist who brings her interpretation of memory and perception of the world, creating a universal resonance.”

One the most promising up-and-coming figureheads of the younger Korean artistic world, JeeYoung Lee is a world-builder, known for constructing intricate universes through infinite minutiae and extraordinary patience. For Maiden Voyage she will create over 400 individual ginkgo leaves by hand which will then each be hung from the soaring NOW Gallery rafters. 

She is one of the most innovative artists working across art and fashion with previous clients including Hermes, Samsung and Tiger Beer. Her work has been published in several prestigious international outlets including The New York Times and CNN International, and she is a recipient of multiple artistic awards including The Sovereign Asian Art Prize Finalists Top 30 (2012, Hong Kong) and OCI Young Creatives (2013, South Korea).