Jenny Lee (BFA ’13)

Wedding Bojagi (detail), hand-dyed linen, hand-embroidery, recycled fabric, photo transfer, 18”x18”

Artist Statement

My goal in pursuing the craft of textile arts, especially that of embroidery and
quilting, is to critique, question, and subtly subvert our expectation of textiles as having
only domestic practicality. I do this by playing with traditional form and texture of
American quilting and embroidery and combining it with the Korean art of pojagi, or
cloth wrapping. According to Clare Roberts and Huh Dong-hwa in Rapt in Colour
(1998), during the Joseon Dynasty, scraps of cloth were patchworked together and used
to carry various small objects. Though visually similar to quilting patterns, these pieces
were hand-stitched with basic needle and thread.
My work is an interpretation of this form; I use the recognizable shapes and
patterns of traditional pojagi combined with printed symbols, visuals, and drawings to
reshape the original domestic narrative. What results is a glimpse into the cultural and
everyday messages that surround my personal identity as a biracial woman. Beyond the
practical application of providing protection, warmth, and containment, textiles provide a
narrative of human experience that is as personal as it is universal. As someone who has
always felt detached from one half of my identity the narrative of my Korean Heritage is
what captivates me. I craft in this medium because the tactile, textural act of stitching,
printing, and embroidering on fabric allows me to assemble seemingly disparate and
fractured halves together to tell a story.

First Born, hand-dyed linen, hand-embroidery, silk

1979, fabric, hand-embroidery, photo transfer