LEE SUNME
Lee Sunme graduated from Seoul National University with a Master’s degree in Metalwork and Jewellery Design in her early years, and since 2003, she has formally transitioned from metalwork and gemstone identification to create works in the field of installation art. After 18 years, she continues to explore and express herself with light, lenses, and metal.
Many of her well-known works are made up of discarded old eyeglass lenses. As the tools through which users once saw the world, eyeglass lenses have an inextricable relationship with the individual, and she seems to have always believed in her creations that eyeglasses represent more than just an object; they are a symbol of the owner and a part of the person.
As we all know that glasses are very personal items that cannot be shared with others, each pair of glasses will eventually leave its own unique mark. Each scratch records the personality, habits, time and even the life of the wearer. Through the object of glasses, it is as if we can see someone’s past.
There are a lot of stories around glasses, but usually no one will think about where a discarded lens will end up. What can it do? What does it mean? Lee Sun-mi realised this from a very early stage.
The “Balloon” floating in the air shows a moment of relaxation, joy, happiness and pleasure.
“Each person sees things through their own eyes. I think eyeglasses signify that point.”
LEE SUNME
Unlike industrialised mass production, every piece of Li Shanmei’s work is made by her in the most primitive handmade way, and the completion of a piece of work can take as short as dozens of days or as long as dozens of months.
She is always passionate about craftsmanship, production details, and creative presentation, which seems to be inextricably linked to the profession she once studied.
As a long-time handmade artist, the most common materials she uses in her creations are discarded lenses and metal brass pieces that she collects from various places.
The shapes we see in different shapes and sizes are often closely calculated from the initial design, to the cutting and polishing of each lens, to the moulding with weaving.
And because of this, the final curves shaped by the hands have an incomparable beauty.
Lenses with different refractive indexes represent the unique personality and shape of each individual. Hundreds of spectacle lenses with different refractive indexes are connected together by metal copper sheets, reborn and intertwined under the light, which will eventually be projected again in the space where we live.
Among her many works, the most representative is still the circle like the earth, once they are lit from the middle, they look like a blooming flower, and the lenses are shaped like petals, which is very elegant.
For Lee Sunme, the relationship between the lens and the circle is like the relationship between the individual and the world. Living on the earth, everyone’s perspective on the world is unique, and the way of interpreting life is different, and it is precisely because of this that the collective world is made up of the wonderful.