Installation view of 《Mending Room》. Courtesy of the artist. ©Faction. Photo: Nam Seowon.
Faction presents 《Mending
Room》, the second solo exhibition by emerging artist
Mandy Lee, on view through March 22.
Lee has developed a practice spanning
textile sculpture, installation, and performance. She pays close attention to
the distinctive colors, forms, and textures of objects encountered by chance in
her surroundings, collecting materials and infusing them with her own emotions
to create new objects and performative works.
The objects that emerge from her hands are
irregular assemblages in which vibrant colors, dense textures, and organic
forms intertwine. Though seemingly chaotic, the fragments support one another,
forming a stable and solid structure. Through large-scale installations built
by stacking or layering small pieces, Lee often stages scenes where a
paradoxical sense of stability emerges from apparent instability.
This exhibition begins with Lee’s recent
return to Taeyang Villa in Sanggye-dong, Nowon-gu, the place where she spent
her childhood, where she personally repaired worn parts of the aging building.
Tracing the frayed surfaces of the house, the artist collected visual fragments
from its deteriorated structure. These captured traces are enlarged and
transferred onto fabric, then further processed through wax treatments and
embroidery.
Installation view of 《Mending Room》. Courtesy of the artist. ©Faction. Photo: Nam Seowon.
Stitching along the traces of cracks, Lee
sews together—on a material level—the gap that has opened between the time of
childhood and the present. She further expands the act of mending, originally
performed on the surface of fabric, by incorporating bodily gestures, extending
the scope of fixation and disassembly to the entire spatial environment.
Here, the beeswax that supports the
sculptures embodies a contradictory materiality—both solid and fragile at once.
The light that seeps out from lamps installed within the sculptures projects
through the loose weave of the fabric, illuminating the wrinkles on the cloth
surface and the traces of stitching. At the same time, however, this light may
also melt the very beeswax that holds the structure together.
Thus, poised at the threshold between
rupture and repair, standing and collapse, Mending Room maintains a tense
equilibrium. The exhibition encapsulates the core of Mandy Lee’s practice,
which has, since her early works, employed fabric while developing “mending” as
a central methodology.
Mandy Lee, 태양빌라 (Taeyang Villa), 2026, Dupion silk yarn, wax, fabric, 21x42cm. Courtesy of the artist. ©Faction. Photo: Nam Seowon.
The ‘태양빌라 (Taeyang
Villa)’ series, presented for the first time in this exhibition, is part of a
project of the same name. The artist has moved back into Taeyang Villa and uses
the space as her studio, periodically documenting through photographs the areas
she repairs and mends.
Continuing beyond the duration of the
exhibition, the ongoing ‘태양빌라 (Taeyang Villa)’ Project
represents Lee’s process of realizing her envisioned “Mending Room.” When the
project is eventually completed, the artist plans to publish a book documenting
its progression.
