You are cordially invited to tea time (Courtesy of The Suz), 2008

The merging of all three “Suz”, Sue, Su, and Sioux (representative of three alter-egos symptomatic of the polarizing impacts of race and identity politics) into a single entity is an attempt to re-define the self, using tactics familiar to how commercial and corporate industries re- brand themselves or form a new authentic identity. The Suz, in the guise of a faux real company and brand, fabricates familiar spaces or constructs to address the notions of authenticity, identity, and perceptions. You are cordially invited to tea time was the faux real collective’s first attempt to create the time for a participatory space and experience for the artist and viewer to interact and partake in an activity that lends itself to a critical dialogue of their immediate surroundings. The installation included an octagonal platform with custom made floor cushions, tea menus, and a tea set on a serving tray (all branded with The Suz logo) that was designed and constructed specifically to host a party of four for tea in the gallery. Throughout the course of the evening everyone was invited to tea time, as a hired employee (me disguised in a blonde wig) served tea to those who willingly decided to sit on top and participate.

**You can see a short video of the installation/performance captured live by wetheat project on the evening of the opening at this link: http://wetheat.tv/WHtvChannel2.html (go to the menu to the left and scroll down to Lee-Chun)**

Initiation, 2008. Watercolor and graphite on paper. Fabric, rawhide, golden thread, my cat's fur, threaded beads, ornate gold detail, black feathers. 3' x 2'.

There are two elements to Initiation - the drawing/painting and the handmade object. In both I weave together parts of myself with parts of an animal. The idea of seams is important in my work. My intent is to create an image for the viewer to wonder over. For example, is this a headdress or an attack? Through formal properties and juxtapositions I deny resolution. By doing so the fantasy comes apart at the seams, unraveled just enough to reveal that the meaning is in the combination.

These seams are made visual through disjointed overlaps of realities, transparencies, and refractions. Automobiles may pass behind a fantastical performance, while mass-produced, kitsch ornamentation is used to pay tribute to drawings of ancient figures. Odd combinations, such as drawings of realistic anatomy combined with handcrafted decorations, echo the hybridity of the beings depicted in my images. This work is not about creating a separate fantasy world but longing and wonderment for other possibilities.

Throughout my work I repeatedly use the image of the centaur, the feral, and the early hominid. Although the centaur is half human, half animal the two parts remain separate inside one being. The feral is also a combination of animal and human, of wild and domesticated. But without resolving into one or the other, the feral exists as something new. As is my work, it is a combined state of neither and both.

Through drawings, video and sculpture, I collapses time and space to create a narrative across eras that explores the mutability of biological form. My quasi-pre-historical, romanticized narratives create a dramatic record of desire and aggression that questions the boundaries of gender, species, and self-identification.

Themes of hybridization and connection run throughout my work, both visually and conceptually. Creating complex amalgams of animal and human, fantastic and realistic, handmade and mass-produced; my narratives entwine mystical experience, natural sciences and daily life. I use fantasy as a strategy to locate the narrative in a borderless, undefined space.

I repeatedly use the image of the centaur, the feral, and the early hominid. These slightly altered states of human being intrigue me as they offer options for existence; a mode of being more connected to our animal selves. This drawing “Barrier Island” is a self portrait created upon return from my solitary stay on Assategue Island. Assateague is a barrier island off the coast of Maryland renowned for free-roaming feral horses. Camping there with no human contact, I became absorbed into the ebbing and flowing of sea water and wildlife. By falling in tune with the daily rhythms of the place and, by extension, the natural world I was no longer a separate being but part of the island.