Leeah Joo

Lives and works in Middlebury, CT, USA

Artist statement

Kurosawa’s film "Dreams" has a scene where a beautiful snow spirit drapes a fallen hiker with layer upon layer of shimmering fabric. These blankets, metaphor for snow, fatigue and death, despite the warmth and comfort, must be shaken off for the hiker to survive.The art historian Irving Lavin’s take on the metaphor for drapery refers to another kind that separates the fictive from the real world, connecting the past with the present, like a curtain at a theater. My recent paintings explore these different connotations of drapery as still life subject, filtered through the lens of an Asian-American immigrant. In one sense, it celebrates the simple beauty and the tradition of Korean brocades saved for special occasions, birthdays or New Year. Then the drapes and folds transform into mountains and oceans informed by recent events, such as the image of the victorious smile on an infamous dictator on top of Paektu Mountain, in North Korea. The drapery embodies celebration, loss and drama through its color and texture of ostentation or demureness. At the same time the drapery is the threshold that intersects fact and fiction, then and now.

Artwork