Jocelyn Lee: Grounded
May 17–July 6, 2007
32 East 57th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY
Installation Views
Selected Works
Pace/MacGill Gallery is pleased to present Jocelyn Lee: Grounded, an exhibition of recent photographs which will be on view from May 17 until June 16, 2007. This is Lee’s first solo exhibition in New York since 2001 and will feature nearly twenty new color photographs. An opening will take place on May 17, 2007, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Photographed primarily in New York and Maine, Lee’s portraits confront issues of aging, mortality, fragility of the body and, by contrast, youth and sensuality. Lee draws our attention to the scars, flesh tones and wrinkles which mark the topography of the human form by contrasting them with the visual and tactile richness of the fabrics, foliage and coloration of the natural and material world which surrounds her subjects.
For years, Lee has photographed in Maine, where she spends much of her time. Among her subjects are young women and men from a small community of Somali immigrants. Through these subjects, Lee investigates the tensions raised when an insular, homogenous community receives immigrants from vastly different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Photographing people in the context of varied landscapes, Lee equates the simplicity, serenity, and drama of these environments with the humanity of her subjects. She states: “The physical landscape serves as a backdrop on which the human drama unfolds. The photographs allude to the fragility of the human presence in the world. These portraits are a way to look at particular people and the human body as a part of nature, evolving and expressing their identity and place in life’s cycles.”
Lee received her B.A. in photography from Yale University, where she studied with Tod Papageorge, and her M.F.A. from the City University of New York at Hunter College. She was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2001. Lee currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Princeton University. Her work can be found in several museums including: The Bates Museum of Art, Lewiston, Maine; The Center for Documentary Studies at Tufts University, Boston; The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine; The Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, Maine; The Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany; The Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.