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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Trini-Korean artist Marissa Yung Lee taking local culture to the world

by

Charle Kong Soo
128 days ago
20241013

In 2023, Maris­sa Yung Lee was award­ed a dis­tinc­tion by the pres­ti­gious Por­trait So­ci­ety of Amer­i­ca for their an­nu­al In­ter­na­tion­al Por­trait Com­pe­ti­tion. This year she was award­ed a cer­tifi­cate of ex­cel­lence from the so­ci­ety. On both oc­ca­sions, it was for her paint­ings of Blue Dev­il kid­dies.

Lee is the first Caribbean artist to have made it to the top 100, and she has been able to ac­com­plish the feat twice so far.

Speak­ing to WE mag­a­zine from St Au­gus­tine, Lee said, “This com­pe­ti­tion is usu­al­ly dom­i­nat­ed by mas­ter artists from the US, UK, Eu­rope, and Asia, so the like­li­hood of be­ing recog­nised was very slim. This is why it meant a lot to me to have Trinidad and To­ba­go be among the awardees.”

Orig­i­nal­ly from south Trinidad, her moth­er is Trinida­di­an, and her fa­ther is South Ko­re­an. Lee al­so re­turned from a trip to Lon­don a few months ago. While in Lon­don, she had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vis­it sev­er­al art gal­leries, but she was ac­tu­al­ly there on a work­ing hol­i­day.

“I was in­vit­ed by a won­der­ful fam­i­ly who live there; the wife is from Trinidad, she said.

“They had bought two of my paint­ings from past shows be­fore de­cid­ing that they want­ed to com­mis­sion a large piece, so they in­vit­ed me to their home for three weeks to work on it.

“They were re­al­ly kind and treat­ed me very well. Dur­ing my breaks, we vis­it­ed the Tate Britain and Mod­ern, the Vic­to­ria and Al­bert Mu­se­um, the Na­tion­al Por­trait Gallery, Hamp­ton Court Palace, and the Phillip Mould Gallery, where I saw King Charles’ of­fi­cial por­trait.”

Lee said the fam­i­ly want­ed a large paint­ing that cap­tured a piece of Tri­ni cul­ture. They in­di­cat­ed that some­thing Car­ni­val-re­lat­ed would be pre­ferred. When she ar­rived there, she pre­sent­ed them with some op­tions, and they de­cid­ed on a Blue Dev­il, mod­elled by Stef­fano Or­lan­do Mar­cano of the Next Lev­el Dev­ils.

It took Lee two weeks to com­plete the paint­ing, and they were all very hap­py with how it turned out.

When asked what art­works or pieces she was im­pressed by in the var­i­ous gal­leries, she replied the best show she saw was a John Singer Sar­gent ex­hi­bi­tion called Sar­gent and Fash­ion at the Tate Britain. Lee ex­plained they were able to dis­play some of the orig­i­nal dress­es and cos­tumes along­side the paint­ings they were fea­tured in. She said it had been an ar­dent wish of hers to see Car­na­tion Lily, Lily Rose, and La­dy Ag­new of Lochnaw in per­son, and she was fi­nal­ly able to at this show. She ex­pressed that there was re­al­ly noth­ing like see­ing these mas­ter­pieces with the naked eye as no pho­to could ever com­pare. “It was tru­ly one of the hap­pi­est ex­pe­ri­ences of my life,” she said. “Sar­gent is my favourite artist.”

She al­so loved see­ing two Pre-Raphaelite paint­ings by John William Wa­ter­house (The La­dy of Shalott) and John Everett Mil­lais (Ophe­lia).

Fred­er­ic Leighton’s work was as­ton­ish­ing to see as well.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Lee did not meet up with any artists dur­ing her three-week stay in Lon­don; how­ev­er, she did meet her two favourite British artists, Frances Bell and Ruth Fit­ton, at the Por­trait So­ci­ety of Amer­i­ca’s In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence just be­fore her Lon­don trip. She has an aunt and un­cle in Aus­tria who are like par­ents to her and has been vis­it­ing them since she was ten years old and every two to three years since. Lee said through them she had been very for­tu­nate to have seen a lot of Eu­rope and to have vis­it­ed pre­cious mu­se­ums like the Uf­fizi in Flo­rence and the Belvedere in Vi­en­na.

Be­ing ex­posed to so much clas­si­cal art and ar­chi­tec­ture un­doubt­ed­ly in­flu­enced her life and art style. Lee spent three weeks with her aunt and un­cle in Aus­tria af­ter leav­ing Lon­don. Her un­cle and she drove to Switzer­land to at­tend Art Basel. This was their third time at­tend­ing Art Basel to­geth­er and has be­come some­thing of a tra­di­tion for them. Lee re­turned to Trinidad at the be­gin­ning of Ju­ly.

She shared that she loves trav­el­ling, meet­ing peo­ple, and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fer­ent cul­tures and cuisines. It opened her mind to how much more there was be­yond the vil­lage, Rousil­lac, she grew up in, she said. She em­pha­sised that, most im­por­tant­ly, the more she trav­elled, the more she ap­pre­ci­at­ed home and our own cul­ture, which is among the rich­est in the world.

Lee paint­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 lock­down. Her first two show­ings, a four-per­son fol­lowed by a so­lo, took place dur­ing lock­down at Hori­zons Art Gallery. But due to re­stric­tions, none of the artists were al­lowed to at­tend the launch for the four-per­son show, and it was streamed on­line in­stead. Lee was al­lowed to be there for the launch of her first so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion, but no guests were. She did not have a re­al open­ing night with all the fan­fare un­til her sec­ond so­lo show af­ter lock­down had end­ed.

When asked if she had any caus­es she was pas­sion­ate about, Lee said she loves an­i­mals. She wished more was done, not just to pre­vent their abuse but al­so to in­still kind­ness to­ward them. Lee said she do­nates pri­vate­ly when she could to var­i­ous an­i­mal res­cue pro­grammes, chil­dren’s homes, and in­di­vid­u­als.

“I wouldn’t feel right about us­ing char­i­ty to draw at­ten­tion to or pro­mote my­self,” she said. Lee has two dogs and a cat. She said they love each oth­er and they love her; they make her so hap­py. Lee said they have their own lit­tle per­son­al­i­ties, which was a joy to wit­ness. Among her hob­bies, she loves mar­tial arts; she is a stu­dent of Gra­cie Jiu-Jit­su Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der Ron­del Ben­jamin.

Lee had the ho­n­our of meet­ing Amer­i­can celebri­ty chef, au­thor, and trav­el doc­u­men­tar­i­an, An­tho­ny Bour­dain, when he vis­it­ed Trinidad in 2017 for his show, An­tho­ny Bour­dain: Parts Un­known. She shared that Bour­dain at­tend­ed a pri­vate ses­sion with them, and she was able to roll (spar) with him. “He was very nice; I was sor­ry to hear of his pass­ing,” Lee added.

She said she played mas be­fore, but now she is fas­ci­nat­ed with tra­di­tion­al mas. A lot of her work was cen­tred around that, and if she plays mas again, it would be tra­di­tion­al. Lee paints Car­ni­val, Blue Dev­il, Jab Jab, Moko Jumbies, and folk­lore char­ac­ters and com­pos­es the struc­ture of the paint­ing, but the per­form­ers de­sign their own looks and cos­tumes. “It’s part of the rea­son I find them so in­spir­ing,” she said.

Lee is most­ly self-taught, but she has sup­ple­ment­ed her learn­ing with sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al work­shops. She did two work­shops in the US with Su­san Ly­on and Scott Bur­dick and one in In­dia with Pramod Kurlekar and Su­chi­tra Bhosle. Lee has since tak­en on­line work­shops with all of them and a few oth­er artists she ad­mires, like Zin Lim and Kei­ta Mo­ri­mo­to.

She shared that she used to draw car­toons, then comics and man­ga, like most chil­dren. Lee said she knew that she liked it and was bet­ter at it than most of her class­mates. She said, how­ev­er, she nev­er thought it was some­thing that was im­por­tant for her fu­ture. “I nev­er knew that it would one day be my ca­reer,” Lee added.

Lee start­ed out with wa­ter­colour, but now she works pri­mar­i­ly in oil paint. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly, Lee dab­bles in char­coal, chalk pas­tel, and con­te. She said por­traits and fig­ure paint­ing are her ab­solute favourites. Lee de­scribes her style as re­al­ism blend­ed with im­pres­sion­is­tic el­e­ments. She was al­ways try­ing to cap­ture the mag­i­cal re­al­ism of Trin­bag­on­ian cul­ture.

When asked what artists she ad­mired or had been in­flu­enced by, Lee said Michelan­ge­lo was the first artist to leave an im­pres­sion on her. She said his mas­tery of the hu­man form paint­ed and sculpt­ed in dra­mat­ic and heav­en­ly pos­es was some­thing that she was sure led to her sub­ject mat­ter.

Lee said she loved the work of John Singer Sar­gent, as she men­tioned be­fore, as well as Bouguereau, Fred­er­ic Leighton, Ce­celia Beaux, and Richard Schmid. In terms of liv­ing artists, she great­ly ad­mires Su­san Ly­on, Scott Bur­dick, Pramod Kurlekar, Su­chi­tra Bhosle, Daniel Ger­hartz, Daniel Keys, Adri­enne Stein, Oliv­er Sin, David Mack, Kai Lun Qu, and many more.

Lee has ex­hib­it­ed her work at Hori­zons Art Gallery, Arn­im’s Art Gal­le­ria, The Loftt, Stu­dio Joli, the Art So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the Ro­tun­da Gallery.

She al­so gives one-on-one ses­sions that fol­low a work­shop for­mat of four to five days.


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