Lucent Refractions

Maya Pollack and Juyon Lee

PUTTY'S CORONATION is pleased to announce the opening of Lucent Refractions, a two-person exhibition featuring the work of Maya Pollack and Juyon Lee at Putty’s Coronation on 483 17th St, 4B, Brooklyn, NY 11215 from March 9th - April 7th, 2024.

Lucent Referactions presents two artists who create interwoven surfaces that transcend direct observation. In distinct yet related ways, both artists utilize transparent materials to create objects hovering at the edge of familiarity and stability. The work of each artist interacts with contextual lighting conditions to imbue the surrounding space with an expanded ocular presence. Through this optical intervention alternative perceptions create fragmented views of reality that regroup into a new vision.

In her series of Wet Photographs, Lee photographs her subjects through glass lenses that shifts the focus to light rather than the object. Once printed, Lee further distorts her subjects by cutting and weaving the image, creating a pixelated tapestry. The image is then coated and shaped with resin, forming a reflective, transparent object. The result is a highly unstable surface containing the characteristics of a lens and challenges the viewer’s instinct to locate figuration.

Placed in front of the gallery’s bay window, Pollack’s Horizon Quilt forms a sculptural intervention between light and space. Utilizing thread and fresnel lenses, Pollack creates optical tapestries that reconstitute sight as a corporal experience. Distorting the viewer's sight to the outside world, Horizon Quilt becomes a double projection screen of inner and outer reality.

Through the use of transparency, Maya Pollack and Juyon Lee confront the isolation created by virtual technologies by inviting the viewer not just to see, but to see through. Perspectives are twisted and multiplied with new types of visuality that arise from fractalization and distortion. Constructing a visual language of separation that confronts the alienation that is the essence of our current lived experience.

Juyon Lee is a South Korea-born artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Lee has exhibited with NARS Foundation Main Gallery, Jewett Arts Center, Tufts University Art Galleries, and Collar Works. Artist-in-residence include NARS Foundation, The Studios at MASS MoCA, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Vermont Studio Center. She is the recipient of notable fellowships and awards, including the Bronx Museum AIM Fellowship, Pilchuck Fellowship, and St. Botolph's Emerging Artist Award. Lee received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and her BA from Wellesley College (summa cum laude).

Maya Pollack is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA from New York University in 2018. She has exhibited in New York, Kansas City, San Francisco, and Berlin. She is currently adjunct faculty at NYU in the Tisch Interactive Media Art and Steinhardt Studio Art programs, teaching courses on technology, textile arts, and sculpture.