Smile Purgatory

"Smile Purgatory," a ceramics exhibition by artist Jennie Jieun Lee, is up at a Paris gallery until October 2014. The pieces in it represent extreme psychic tumult and fracturing. According to a Huffington Post article:

Lee was first inspired to create the series during her time as a casting director, finding herself face-to-face with smiles stemming from nowhere. "I saw that the models were frozen in their smiles for the camera even though they were not necessarily happy," she explained in an interview with Galerie Lefebvre & Fils. "This sparked a visceral memory of years past when I was suffering from a deep depression. I would cry while looking in the mirror but then I would force myself to smile repeatedly to see if my face would move that way. This show is a ceremony to exhibit the specific ways a smile can become stretched and distorted when held beyond the initial state." 

The artist's history with agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder arising from fear of spaces without an easy escape, also contributes to her practice. After spending too much time indoors, Lee would feel her face begin to contort, an experience she channels through her mask-making. "The longer I trapped myself inside my house, the more grotesque and distorted my face would become in my mind," she said. "Some of the masks are cracked to display the kaleidoscopic deformity I'd see when I looked in the mirror during that time."

Image credit: Andres Ramirez