Jungjin Lee Iceland Photos: Dark & Epic Review
Explore Jungjin Lee’s “Unseen” exhibition,a powerful showcase of landscape photography in London were teh primary focus is the exploration of existential angst. Discover how Lee’s black-and-white images from Iceland serve as a mirror to our inner emotions, reflecting personal interpretations of nature, and emotional landscapes. Learn how lee’s background in calligraphy and ceramics informs her creative process, blending photography with conventional korean art techniques, thereby producing unique textures and tones that blur the lines between photography and ink painting. Readers of News Directory 3 will find this exhibition a compelling window into the human condition.Intrigued by this unique viewpoint? Discover what’s next in the world of art.
Jungjin Lee’s ‘Unseen’ Exhibition Explores Existential Angst Through Landscape Photography
Updated June 06,2025
Jungjin Lee’s exhibition,”Unseen,” currently showing in London,presents a series of black-and-white landscape photographs taken in Iceland. The images, rather than depicting the locale, serve as a mirror reflecting the viewer’s inner emotions and experiences.
Lee, a New York-based artist with roots in South Korea, draws upon her background in calligraphy and ceramics too inform her photographic process. This exhibition, featuring 10 works, marks her first solo show in the U.K. in three decades.
Lee’s artistic journey shifted away from documentary photography after a project documenting a ginseng hunter revealed her work was more about her internal state than objective reality. Inspired by Robert Frank’s instinctive approach, Lee began capturing the American landscape, portraying rocks, trees, and waves as portraits of both herself and the viewer.
Her recent work in Iceland captures dramatic vistas that evoke a range of human emotions. Lee views the landscape as a canvas for existential angst and metaphorical reflection, suggesting nature can hold the complexities of human experience.
The photographs place viewers in stark settings, such as a road leading into darkness or the intersection of sea and land. One image features a resolute rock facing choppy waters, its surface seemingly holding the world’s history. The subjective nature of the images allows for personal interpretations, such as seeing a mother and child in a picture of two rocks.
Lee’s technical skill, honed through calligraphy and ceramics, is evident in her landscape photography.She uses a medium format panoramic camera and hand-applied emulsion on Korean mulberry paper to create unique textures. The images are then digitized, adjusted, and reprinted, resulting in works that resemble ink paintings.
The textures and tones in Lee’s work evoke a pictorialist tradition, blurring the line between photography and drawing. In one minimalist image, a mountain is abstracted, its lines merely suggesting its form.
What’s next
Visitors can experience Jungjin Lee’s unique blend of photography and traditional Korean art at the Huxley-Parlour Gallery in London until July 5.