In The skin of the earth is seamless at the Tina Kim Gallery, Maia Ruth Lee draws on her own life, including her youth in Seoul and Nepal and experiences of migration, to consider both the confinement and freedom associated with a life in motion. The personal exhibition includes paintings, sculptures and an intimate and poetic film entitled “La Lettre” (2023). This film grounds the exhibit, pairing old home videos his father took, many of which feature rural Nepal, with the text of letters Lee wrote during the pandemic. Candid clips of everyday life show people traveling and standing on piles of colorful fabrics in markets, and sweeping views of the mountainous landscape. The words offer insight into Lee’s inner thoughts, concern for family issues, and the concept of home.
Lee pairs “The Letter” with sculptures made of an assortment of colorful fabrics and tarps, much like those seen in the video, as part of her Bondage Baggage series (2018-ongoing). Bundled and tightly wrapped in a cage of rope, twine, and duct tape, the dense bundles lay in a heap on the floor. In making them, she had in mind the luggage she had seen on the conveyor belts at Kathmandu airport. Representative of the people to which it belongs, each plot carries stories of travel and migration. Lee’s packages also contain evidence of human hands that tightly wrapped each material.
The bound objects push against the ropes that hold them, bulging through the grids of their envelope, giving an image of confinement. In his paintings, Lee draws inspiration from sculptures, applying ink to the wrapped unprimed canvas in tight bundles. She then releases the web, cutting the rope and relieving the pressure. The proof of having been bound is preserved in the grid and the impression of strings. The burden, however, is gone. Areas that were once squeezed through small holes in the mesh are smooth, the surface almost flat. While the rope tracks remain, the canvas stands taut and strong, an embodiment of freedom. Scattered on the ground below are the empty rope cages, their pod-like forms intact despite the removal of the contents, a visual reminder of their former role.
Bringing the viewer from migration clips and tight bundles of personal items to vibrant paintwork that seem to have exploded from their exoskeletons, Lee presents a powerful story of the tensions and metamorphoses that migration engenders.
Maia Ruth Lee: The skin of the earth is seamless continues at the Tina Kim Gallery (525 West 21st Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) through May 6. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
