HAERIM LEE
=RIM LEE

My mixed media two-dimensional practice inhabits the boundary between painting and photography. The series 1230 North Burling Street 60610 depicts the last demolished high-rise building of Cabrini Green. Paintings based on found photographs of the raised high-rise building from Cabrini Green are juxtaposed with abstracted photographs of the site.

​

I examine Cabrini Green in Chicago as a case study of violence and the erasure of public housing (site). The public housing project represents physical boundaries, which imply political, cultural, economic, and social divisions.  In investigating Cabrini Green, I pose the socio-political question—What is the meaning of destroying public housing of a marginalized community?

​

The contrast between the medium of painting and scratched chromatic film implicates the problematic of past and present. I transcribe my subjective experience upon the surface of Yupo paper and chromatic film. Fast brushstrokes mark the smooth surface of the Yupo paper and create a sense of urgency. There is a directness when I paint, a visceral encounter with the history of the site. The desaturated palette of violet, olive green, and umber evokes the past history of Cabrini Green. In contrast, the black scratched photographs document the contemporary site. The physical act of scratching the surface of the film generates a subjective interpretation of site. Although the unexposed film does not reveal a visual record of the current site, it exposes the absence of public housing in Cabrini Green.

​