Meet Jungmin Lee | Illustrator & Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jungmin Lee and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jungmin, Let’s talk about principles and values – what matters to you most?
I appreciate the following values : honesty that encourage self to try in new approaches, passion that opens the view to see world with open possibilities, and spirit that trusts inner thoughts and to experience the process rather than result. I try to keep these elements into my making process and especially when the repetitive and reflective time comes. I believe these principles communicate together because spirit that comes from honest instinct support my passion to try more.

Honesty means to me as the process of remembering forgotten memories, puzzling childhood memories, and feeling the inspiration of honest moments, such as watching children playing outside and the energy from the nature and trees. These honest scenes wake me up to remind the importance of appreciating the parts of daily life that could be lost, and to provide a pause to observe with less hurry. This slow down moment helps me to be curious on why I am making a certain work, how is my thinking process going on, and to revise for future making process.

In addition, passion is important part that I would like to remind myself because it helps me as navigation and map to see where I departed. Sometimes, I feel lost and unsure about what directions to move forward with my making process, however, I realized that keep moving does not mean going forward, which the passion can remind me my original interests and what I truly enjoyed. For example, family travels to visit big, old trees as a child gave me a great impression and emotional response, which I am passionate to imagine. I think passion guides one to see the process of journey, and to strengthen the mind and decision to take action further.

Lastly, spirit symbolizes to me as experiment, adventure, and play. Trying something new provide me fresh visions to feel the surrounding and especially for ideation stage. Experiments encourage to think in different way, such as trying found materials, reversing the painting process, using new drawing surfaces, or collaborating with people and family. Conversation with self and others give me to reduce the bias and one comfortable direction that I automatically goes, and this spirit shows me wider versions of possibilities.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I try to use visual languages that are motivated by nature, children, memory and folk art. I would like my works to reflect the honest minds of people, heal one’s emotions, and share the encouragement for dreamers. To achieve these goals, my process is based on experimental interpretation, the use of mixed media, and 3 dimensional objects.

I am excited about how art and design can be collaborated, and to avoid the separation of creative fields. I believe learning about diverse approaches and concept making process are important, and to learn from peoples’ experiences. It shares lessons not only about art, but to feel the new emotions and thinking process that I did not aware. This supports me during time of losing interests because fresh insights and peoples’ encouraging words speak to me as “It is okay to feel fall down. It is okay to stop, and one does not need to force themselves to do something.” These idea that I did not feel before helped me to overcome the challenges and to understand time and process.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would like to go to Rose Bowl park with my best friends, to have a picnic at a big green grass yards with trees, and lay down with warm sunshine. It is a great place to fly a kite, run together, and have some snacks. Visiting art material store Blick is fun to look around, and Norton Simon Museum is also a great place to get inspiration and have a restful time at outside garden. I would also like to visit Vroman’s bookstore to see many genres of books, photos, items and accessories. Next to this bookstore, there is playhouse to watch films and to walk down the streets seeing different names and places. For dinner, I would like to have time at Nine and Nine Thai Kitchen, and to have Pad See Ew and Fried Wonton. If there is a time, visiting Griffith Observatory and seeing stars would be wonderful.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Without the supports from family, friends and professors, I could not have been encouraged to try new approaches and to appreciate the process itself. They helped me to reflect my past works, share their advices and suggestions, which showed me the perspectives and possible applications that I could consider. Mostly, their words to support my experiments and trying new things are greatly appreciated to my process, and learning from their inspiring work and personalities teach me the importance of being human and relationship.

Website: www.jungmin-lee.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leejungmin1213/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jungmin-lee-5153a4204/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oBcX6V5eEA