Born in Seoul, educated in Korea and France, and now based in San Jos\u00e9 after years in Berkeley, Atlanta, and Boston, Lee embodies the nomadic spirit of her title. \u201cNomad,\u201d she said during her artist talk moderated by SJCC Art Professor Emanuela Harris-Sintamarian, \u201cmeans accepting the new environment and making it by my own way.\u201d Yet life goes on<\/em> adds a tempered realism\u2014an embrace of endurance over flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her canvases merge Korean pagodas with Bay Area skylines; the Golden Gate Bridge arcs beside a stylized jangseung<\/em> totem. A moon\u2014perhaps a sun\u2014hangs between them. \u201cIn Korea,\u201d she noted, \u201cwe use the moon calendar; it\u2019s close to the moon.\u201d The hybrid vista becomes, as she put it, \u201cthe form of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n For Lee, landscape is less a genre than a psychological state. \u201cHow can I make something invisible\u2014our formless life\u2014into what I can see?\u201d she asked. Each painting fuses real and remembered scenes into composite geographies where emotion becomes terrain. \u201cEven if life keeps changing and sometimes it\u2019s messy,\u201d she said, \u201cwe still have strength. I like to express that energy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After her formative years in Paris\u2014where she learned \u201cto stand by myself and figure out everything\u201d\u2014geometry became her universal language. \u201cGeometric shapes make it easy to translate my thinking to others,\u201d she explained. Triangles and grids thus serve as translators between cultures, a visual Esperanto of belonging and displacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Material choice anchors Lee\u2019s art as firmly as composition. Paint brings immediacy; thread demands patience. \u201cEmbroidery gives me a calm, meditative moment,\u201d she said. \u201cI reflect on my life while stitching.\u201d The act pierces the canvas, collapsing the boundary between surface and depth. For Lee, it is both rupture and repair: \u201cLife takes apart and comes together again; I express that through embroidery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her needlework often resembles coded textiles\u2014patches, quilts, talismans. \u201cSometimes embroidery looks like a patch,\u201d she laughed. \u201cI want to enjoy the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This playfulness lightens the severity of her black-and-white geometry with pastel pinks and cerulean blues. The tactile shimmer reclaims a traditionally domestic craft as a language of resilience and continuity.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n The expansiveness of Lee\u2019s work belies its setting: her San Jos\u00e9 living room. Each morning after her two daughters leave for school, she unrolls canvas across the floor and paints until mid-afternoon, tidying before they return. \u201cWhen I was twenty, I would complain I didn\u2019t have space,\u201d she said. \u201cNow it doesn\u2019t matter. If the timing is right, I can do everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That discipline infuses her paintings with intimacy. The domestic becomes cosmic, motherhood folded into process rather than distraction. \u201cMany people say, \u2018I\u2019ll start when I have enough space,\u2019\u201d she told students. \u201cYou don\u2019t need that\u2014you just start.\u201d The statement has since circulated through SJCC\u2019s art studios as quiet encouragement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A centerpiece of the exhibition, Cosmos and Us<\/em>, originated in crisis. After relocating to Atlanta and caring for a husband undergoing cancer treatment, Lee felt \u201cinsignificant\u2026like a particle of the universe.\u201d Reading Carl Sagan\u2019s Cosmos<\/em> restored perspective: \u201cEven if we are very small, we are meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She began painting from the upper left corner downward, threading together pyramids, Greek temples, Arctic igloos, Roman arches, and Asian pagodas into a single panoramic scroll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wanted to show the history of humans on one screen,\u201d she said. The result is an atlas of existence\u2014an image of the universe rendered from the living-room floor. In it, endurance becomes a cosmology.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite their density, Lee\u2019s works radiate calm. Harris-Sintamarian called them \u201corganized chaos.\u201d Lee described her process as a pendulum motion between outward experience and inward reflection: \u201cWhen something from the world hits me, I accept it and reflect it in my way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This oscillation shapes both structure and palette. Cool blues meet umbers; pale pinks soften black lines. The tonal shifts recall twilight\u2014neither day nor night\u2014befitting an artist perpetually between homelands. Viewers wander through stair-forms that promise ascent but dissolve into pattern, feeling the rhythm of migration itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lee\u2019s newest pieces move painting into space. She cuts, stuffs, and stitches canvas into low reliefs. \u201cI hand-sew each element, fill it with fiber to keep its shape,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will be expanded anyway. I\u2019d like to make stitching around us\u2014maybe shapes of beds or water drops.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The impulse follows naturally from the architectural depth of her compositions. By letting canvases bulge outward, she bridges painting, textile, and sculpture\u2014joining a lineage that includes Louise Bourgeois, Sheila Hicks, and Chiharu Shiota. Yet her tone remains distinctive: lyrical, disciplined, sustained by patience rather than spectacle.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked what she would tell her twenty-year-old self, Lee smiled. \u201cMaybe I would feel confused\u2014but proud.\u201d Korean culture, she said, teaches humility; Western life taught her that pride can coexist with grace. \u201cBeing humble is not bad,\u201d she reflected, \u201cbut keeping myself proudly is also important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After years spent raising children and relocating, she regards every hour in the studio as a gift. \u201cMaybe there will be many failures,\u201d she told students. \u201cBut if you keep thinking about what you want to do, one day you will do it. It\u2019s not failure\u2014it\u2019s just timing.\u201d The patience of embroidery, she reminds them, is also an ethics of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Art-historically, Lee stands at a crossroads: the minimal geometry of Korea\u2019s dansaekhwa<\/em>, Parisian modernist line, and the feminist reclamation of craft. She resists neat classification. \u201cIf viewers interpret the image by their own experience, that\u2019s great,\u201d she said. When one audience member saw Machu Picchu in her stacked blocks, she smiled: \u201cTranslation by the viewer\u2014that\u2019s connection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That idea of connection pervaded the exhibition itself. Harris-Sintamarian\u2019s dialogue framed the show as a cultural bridge; students lingered afterward to discuss technique, identity, and the tactile intelligence of thread. The partnership between SJCC\u2019s Art Gallery and Ethnic Studies Department reinforced Lee\u2019s message that art\u2019s truest medium is exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Viewed together, the works in Nomad Reflection: Life Goes On<\/em> form a mirrored architecture of persistence. The oft-casual phrase \u201clife goes on\u201d becomes, in Lee\u2019s hands, an anthem of endurance. Her stitches hold more than pigment and fiber\u2014they hold time itself, binding past to present with the quiet strength of care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the evening closed, Lee thanked the audience: \u201cEvery moment I can create my work and show it to you is precious.\u201d Her journey\u2014from Seoul to Paris to California\u2014has yielded not only images but philosophy: to build beauty out of flux, to mend what distance tears, and to keep moving forward\u2014stitch by stitch, life after life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exhibition:<\/strong> Nomad Reflection: Life Goes On<\/em> Korean-born artist Jung Sun Lee transforms displacement into luminous geometry and embroidered landscapes in Nomad Reflection: Life Goes On at San Jos\u00e9 City College. Moderated by Professor Emanuela Harris-Sintamarian, the exhibition reveals Lee\u2019s meditative fusion of paint and thread\u2014mapping belonging, endurance, and the quiet resilience of life in motion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[649393380,103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Art](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/the-roar.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_6792.jpeg?resize=768%2C1024&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>
\n\n\n\nII. Landscape as Inner Cartography<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nIII. Thread as Philosophy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/the-roar.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_6795.jpeg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1\")
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\n\n\n\nIV. The Domestic Studio<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Artist](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/the-roar.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_6799.jpeg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nV. Cosmos and Us<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Art](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/the-roar.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_6793.jpeg?resize=768%2C1024&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>
\n\n\n\nVI. The Pulse of Quietness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nVII. Toward the Third Dimension<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/the-roar.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_6791.jpeg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>
\n\n\n\nVIII. Humility and Pride<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nIX. Reading the Threads<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nX. Reflection<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/the-roar.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_6797.jpeg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Artist:<\/strong> Jung Sun Lee
Venue:<\/strong> Carmen Castellano Fine Arts Center, San Jos\u00e9 City College
Moderator:<\/strong> Emanuela Harris-Sintamarian
Dates:<\/strong> October 1\u201329, 2025
Sponsors:<\/strong> SJCC Art Gallery and Ethnic Studies Department<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"