In a selection of works now showing at mini-gallery Britomart Project Space, Korean-born digital artist Jae Hoon Lee weaves everyday textures and shapes into intricate moving images that compel us to take a second look.

Lee scans textures from the world around him, manipulating them digitally to transform the ordinary into art. In his work, he uncovers minute details of everyday objects and surroundings, urban scenes, accidents, elements of nature and natural phenomena: things that are seen, yet at the same time not.

In the three works showing at Britomart Project Space, Lee explores the textures and detail of leaves, skin and everyday computer equipment.

In ‘A Leaf’, Lee uses a time-lapsed version of a leaf's annual life cycle, concocting a hybrid leaf made up of many leaves, continually rising like a DNA strand passing up to the heavens.

Listener critic Tessa Laird described the work as “a green geyser of morphing species… this piece was like a trip up the Amazon River – astonishingly lush”.

For ‘Camouflage’, Lee used a flat a scanner and collected random ethnographic samples of faces around him, stitching them together to ‘flatten’ the racial diversity around him and provide a timeless portrait of his community.

In ‘Salvation’, he has captured images of computers, turning the recording device back on itself. The work cobbles together the keyboards of old computers, buttons upon buttons, to create a 'motherboard' of all machines. The stains and marks of overuse are clearly visible, bringing us back to the body and its ever-present residues and histories.

Lee leads a nomadic life, collecting source material for his work on his travels through New Zealand, Asia and Europe. He uses the material in a variety of ways, from digitally manipulated photographs mounted on light boxes to montages of moving images and patterns.

Jae Hoon Lee was born in Korea and moved to the United States in 1993 to study Fine Arts, majoring in sculpture at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1998 he moved to New Zealand to pursue his studies at Auckland University’s Elam School of Fine Arts, graduating with a Doctorate of Fine Arts in 2012.

Lee shows internationally and his work is featured in major public and private collections in New Zealand and overseas.

The selection of works now at Britomart Project Space is showing courtesy of Starkwhite, Auckland. ‘Antarctic Fever’, a major exhibition by Jae Hoon Lee, is showing at Starkwhite from 18 September to 13 October 2012.

'Selection' by Jae Hoon Lee
Britomart Project Space
28 Customs Street East, Britomart

More art at Britomart