KHAN LEE
Hearts and Arrows, 2013
single channel HD video
1 hour, 14 minutes, 40 seconds
Khan Lee’s conceptually driven art practice encompasses performance, installation, video, and sculpture. He is known for creating new meaning out of everyday objects through the creation of architectonic constructions. In this durational performance-based video, Lee labours from dusk to dawn to achieve an intricately faceted diamond out of a giant ice block. The video, Hearts and Arrows, borrows its title from the highly-prized optically precise diamonds of the same name. Reserved for only the purest grade of gemstone, an extremely demanding, precision cutting technique is employed to produce the angles and symmetry of a hearts-and-arrows pattern when viewed through a gemstone loupe. Arrows are visible from the top of the diamond, and hearts are visible when the diamond is face-down.
Set against the stunning background of Vancouver’s active port where international trade flows day and night, Lee’s ephemeral ice sculpture invites contemplation about resource extraction and consumption, and ultimately asks what we value. This symbolic act is ever more poignant twelve years after its making, as our greater reliance on rare Earth minerals has an increasing impact on the environment. In stark contrast to the advertising slogan “a diamond is forever” Lee’s video records an alchemy—the convergence of time, space, material, and labour —all to produce an ethereal form that, in the end, will melt. Lee reflects, “I wanted to create an all-inclusive magical moment when everything happens to appear in unison, and also reflects all daily events, localities, dramas, satisfactions, frustrations, and struggles as a person and as an artist.”
Having spent a year teaching himself how to sculpt ice and how to make a large cube of clear ice without any bubbles (ice that equates with a flawless diamond), Lee’s own labour and artistry is evident. Performed with the hum of the city in the background, Hearts and Arrows bears witness to human contradictions: the material and the conceptual, the formalist and the social, the enduring and the ephemeral.
Artist Biography
Born in Seoul, Korea, Khan Lee studied architecture at Hong-Ik University before moving to Canada to study at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver. He is a founding member of Vancouver based artist collective ‘Intermission’ and a member of Instant Coffee artist collective. His experiments with form, medium, content, and expression have resulted in performance, sculpture, and media works. Lee lives and works in Vancouver BC, and has exhibited nationally, and internationally.
Hearts and Arrows, 2013
video still, single channel HD video
1 hour, 14 minutes, 40 seconds