The Monster 怪。物

2024 solo exhibition at Yrellag Gallery, Hong Kong

2 March - 30 March 2024

“The collection imagines a traumatised little monster, the protagonist who is drawn into his imaginary landscape. As psychological dioramas, the artworks project a series of haunting scenes inside the creature’s head.”

“The Monster” is the first solo exhibition featuring Claire Lee’s latest works, since the artist moved back to Hong Kong after 8 years living in the UK. The “monster” emerged from a variety of repurposed materials, witnessing pain and suffering within himself and others. In this chaotic world, he has created for himself an imaginary sanctuary for contemplation.

“Why do we find ruins and rites beautiful?”, Claire pondered. Tactile and fragile, things previously lost or discarded, to Claire are almost like orphaned objects, and she tried to put these “broken pieces” back together.

While living in the UK, Claire has taken pleasure absorbing all aspects of aesthetics in ballet theatres and scenic designs. The dreamy stage sets and costumes consoled her with a great sense of spiritual comfort during the covid pandemic years in which time she also had personal experience in a medical operating theatre. These latest works created between 2020 and 2023 propose an “aesthetic inquiry” in times of individual and collective anguish against the backdrop of global conflicts and personal insecurities.

Resulting from this intimate 3-year artistic and personal journey immersing herself in materials, the site-specific installation curated by the artist is composed of dioramas, objects, paintings and photo prints. There are also selected poems and prose written by Claire during the period which will flow through the ritualistic presentation.

「這作品系列幻想一個受創的小怪物，被帶到其想像之境地。就像一個心理小劇場，在其腦海中投放出一幕幕令人縈繞於心的場景。」

《怪。物》是藝術家李美蓮在英國生活 8 年後返港以來的首次個展。「怪物」從各種重新演繹的物料中出現，見證自身和他人內心的痛苦和苦難。在混沌的世界裏為自己創造了一個想像中的思緒避風港。

「為什麼我們被廢墟和祭祀儀式所吸引?」李氏反思着。《怪。物》之「物」亦有物料之意。觸感和脆弱，曾遭遺失或丟棄的物件，於李氏，這些東西幾乎就如孤零之物。她試圖將這些破碎的碎片重新組合在一起。

居英生活期間，李氏沉迷於吸收芭蕾舞戲劇佈景的美學。夢幻般的舞臺佈景和服裝在新冠疫情期間給她帶來了極大的精神安撫，當時她自身亦經驗了手術室裏的「舞臺」。這些 2020 年至 2023 年間的最新作品提出「美學探究」，置身於環球衝突和個人不安全感的脈落中，以及其衍生的個人和集體之痛。

這個由藝術家策劃的場域特定裝置由立體場景、物件、繪畫和照片印刷組成，是她三年間親近地沉浸在物料探索的藝術和個人歷程的結果。還有李氏在此期間撰寫的詩歌和散文將在祭祀儀式般的場景中散落呈現。

MAKING PROCESS : The Art of Materiality

Claire Lee's works use found objects as medium, such as burned wooden boxes, inked on some worn scarves, pulled, burned cloth and paper. Apart from ceramic pieces, artist hand shaped materials such as plaster. She believes that changing and interacting with things in different ways is the process and realization of beauty that exists in objects, with their historical marks.

Claire Lee 的作品以現成物作為媒介，例如燒過後的木盒、在一些破舊的圍巾上塗墨、拉扯、經過灼燒而成的布和紙。除了使用現成物，作品上的陶瓷碎片，是藝術家使用石膏等材料親手塑形而出的部分。她認為透過隨手可得的現成物，並以不同的方法來改變或與之互動，是她發現美感存在於有歷史痕跡的物件上的過程和領悟。

ARTIST INTERVIEW : PART I

In this Artist Video, Claire Lee has shared some of her thoughts regarding her solo exhibition, “The Monster.” She unfolds how she developed this project while living in the UK during the pandemic, and elaborated on the materiality of her creative process.

【藝術家專訪】 Part 1

在專訪中，Claire Lee分享了在策劃個展《The Monster》時背後的一些過程和想法。她透露了在英國生活及疫情其間，她如何展開這個計劃，並闡述了她在創作過程中的物料性。

ARTIST INTERVIEW : PART II

Photographic artworks and poetic verses scatter across the white walls. If one‘s gaze lingers for a while, in the hazy play of light and shadow, gradually shifting hues and shapes come into view. Those sentiments are the world she observes, a blend of intimacy and detachment.
In Part Two of the Artist interview , Claire Lee reveals the creative process of her photographic works, and how she responds to the dioramas she created.

【藝術家專訪】 Part 2

影像作品與詩句散落白牆上，若將視線停留一會，在灰濛濛光影中，漸變的色階和形狀逐漸映入眼簾。這些情感，是她所觀察的世界，親密與疏離。
在專訪第二部分，藝術家Claire Lee 提到了白牆上的影像作品是如何由她創作的立體空間作延展。

SELECTED ARTWORKS - Unique art objects

MAKING PROCESS : Bodily expression of emotion

In addition to exploring everyday surrounding objects such as wooden boxes, paper, textiles and ceramics, she also sees body movements as part of the "materials" of her work. Claire Lee took video on some of her body movements and postures, thinking about her mental state behind her creation in the process. She mentioned emotive body expression as inspiration in her text: "I am not a dancer, but I wanted to explore my body language almost as if grieving the loss of identities of things that are dear to us.“ Later, she integrated some of these dance moves into the dioramas that she created, eventually forming a series of theatrical imageries on digital prints.

除了探索日常周邊的物件，如木盒、紙、紡織品和陶瓷，她也將身體動作視為作品「materials」的一部分。Claire Lee 嘗試拍攝一些她的身體動作和姿勢，在過程中思考她在創作背後的心理狀態。她在文字紀錄中提到以 Body Language 作為靈感：「我不是舞者，但我想探索我的肢體語言，就像為我們所珍惜的事物失去身分而悲傷一樣。」（I am not a dancer, but I wanted to explore my body language almost as if grieving the loss of identities of things that are dear to us.）
後來，她將其中一些舞蹈動作融入立體物料中，最終形成了一系列迷你舞台佈景的影像作品。

SELECTED ARTWORKS - Photo Prints

INSTAGRAM

All images courtesy of the artist. Videos courtesy of Yrellag Gallery and the artist.