Once upon a time, in 1991 John Cleese delivered an epic lecture on creativity, stating that in order to come up with something truly great, you need to give yourself time. And he didn’t mean a a few moments here and there for the next week or month. He literally meant that you should sit your ass down in a quiet room with nothing but a pencil and paper. No distractions whatsoever. And sit there for as long as it takes to come up with something original. And when you get there don’t stop. Keep pushing. Keep refining. It’s that kind of relentless laser-focused creativity that separates brilliant artists from mediocre ones. Coming up with something astounding takes time, and a quiet room. That’s how JeeYoung Lee’s staggeringly beautiful set design’s first came to life. Not surprisingly, they took months of preparation. Months of building, sweating, planning, rebuilding and more sweating in a quiet little room measuring no more than 11.8′ x 13.5′ x 7.8′ or 3.6m x 4.1m x 2.4m. And just look at the result. Absolutely magical. Each image represents a phase in the artist’s development. Can you imagine what it must have been like standing in one of her little rooms? Did we mention that JeeYoung Lee did not photoshop her images? Yeah, we’ll let you take that in for a second. For anyone lucky enough to be in the Opio, France area from February 7th to March 7th, 2014, you can see JeeYong Lee’s surreal self portraits exhibited at the OPIOM Gallery.
