ailyn lee

Ailyn Lee is a sculptor who combines found and created objects to create unsettling assemblages that she often extends into films and performance. In this conversation, we discuss shopping for antiques, the way her childhood necessitates her artwork, and moving through insomnia and anxiety. Born in South Korea, she now resides in Manhattan.

I hope you enjoy our conversation. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Artwork photos courtesy of the artist; artist portrait courtesy of Hannah Cash

I grew up going to thrift stores and flea markets so this element of your practice is close to my heart. Can you describe for me what’s it like when you’re in an antique or thrift store?

I love to tour every thrift shop. I am starting to mark every thrift store that I go to. They all have different objects. I am looking for things, furniture shapes, that aren’t too perfectly well made. Because I’m going to de-assemble and use some part of it with my stone clay objects. When I go, I like to see some small pieces, big pieces, that I can combine with human parts—teeth, hands, legs. 

I feel that every object has its own memory. It has a memory like I do. So it’s fun to take that one to make a new memory. It’s like I’m adopting furniture. 

By believing that the objects already have memory, you’re giving them a human quality—a brain. And then you’re also transforming them into these human-like forms—as if you’re giving them a body too. Do you feel that you’re looking for things that remind you of the body? 

Early this year, I collected furniture that could look like a human, as you saw in the exhibition [at A.I.R. Gallery]. But now I’ve moved on to furniture that is combined with some human parts. Before I was making more sculpture sculpture but now I’m really interested in the boxes that I found in thrift shops. How the different objects can make a new form is very interesting to me now. 

When you see, for example, a drawer or piano keys in the shop, is that when you start to see what you’re going to make? Or is it when you bring things back and you’re playing around?

Playing around. At first I de-assemble everything. And like a puzzle, I make it. 

I like that image of you, like a kid playing with Legos. 

I really do that. I love Legos and assembling things, de-assembling things. Until earlier this year, I was focused on how to make this wooden furniture look like a human, like Pinocchio. But now I want to merge human and furniture in one piece. 

Combining furniture and human parts comes from my childhood memory. My mother’s a sculptor and she put everything on the cabinets in our apartment. So that idea gave me the early work. 

Can you describe your mother’s artwork?

She is a sculptor and she made the human body, rendered through ceramic and bronze. While she made one body, she first had to make the head, then the body, and finally she combined everything. So every different part of the body was everywhere. 

Just around your home? 

It scared me when I was little. When I’d go to the bathroom at night, it was like, is that moving? 

You have all these presences in your domestic space. 

My grandmother, mom’s mother, ran an antique shop in South Korea. Her leftover furniture was everywhere in my apartment. These are really the base of my subconscious memory. 

Can you describe your grandmother’s antique store? 

She imported things from Europe. Small objects of unknown origin. She visited and brought stuff back too. Sometimes she connected with someone who sells the furniture; so she saw images and then imported them. The reason why she started that was she just liked furniture and interiors so much. Whenever people visited her house, people liked the furniture. They asked, where did you get that? What is this interior?

Did you ever help out at the shop? Or with the buying? 

My apartment, my mother’s sculpture studio, and my grandmother’s antique shop, were the three places that I played. But not to sell or help, because I was young. 

Right, because you moved to the US when you were 14? 

Yeah. But I didn’t know that I loved furniture before I started the sculptures. I graduated BFA with an illustration major. It was not a fit for me because I had to focus more on what clients wanted. But I had things I continued to draw to make me feel comfortable. As I saw my old sketchbooks, they were all human figures or furniture. So I figured it out. I went really deep into my inner self while I was in my MFA to find out why I am into wood, furniture. 

So you already saw your material in your drawings? And then you were trying to tease out what was going on there?

I didn’t know what was going on for several years. But they helped me feel very comfortable. I draw my childhood spaces. I don’t show my drawings. But I draw these things a lot, furniture and human figures. So I was thinking, why do I like to draw this thing? They are all connected. 

The sculptures are subconsciously the sketches. When was your first use of actual pieces of furniture? 

I started maybe in 2019, I started with a used dresser the first time. Before that, I just used wood pieces to make different objects. I got scared by the cutting machines. I almost cut myself.

Let’s talk a bit about the themes and imagery within your work. When we spoke prior, you said a lot of it comes out of dealing with anxiety and insomnia. It feels very dreamlike. 

And theatrical. 

Yeah, and theatrical, where is your imagery coming from?

The first show that I watched as a child was a Bolshoi Ballet show, Christmas themed, the Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky. It stuck in my head, and since then, I really loved the new world it’s creating. It’s not a real world, but I see another world, and it’s very interesting. It also had an invisible wall, between the viewers and the theater actors. I had so many puppets when I was little, I played hide-and-seek, played with the dolls, inside cabinets. All of those memories come to my head when I have anxiety or insomnia. Everything is just mixed up within my head. 

Can you describe that more?

It’s almost like right before you fall asleep. It’s very calm but I have thoughts going on. I get dreamlike. To not forget that memory, I draw. Then later, I transform the drawing to 3D or video. When I have insomnia or anxiety, my body really wants to be very comfortable. So thinking about the memories when I felt safe and comfortable, those are my childhood memories, related to puppet shows or playing in the cabinets, it all comes into my head. I was having a hard time to figure out why.

You’re looking for signs of familiarity, signs of comfort, things to ground you when your mind is moving all around. I love the image of you sketching, drawing from bed. 

It makes sense as I have a conversation with you, I see myself more as I talk with you. 

The insomnia and anxiety are the starting point. I get insomnia or anxiety almost every day. As I’m almost half asleep, half awake, I am thinking about the memories from the past when I played with the antiques or mother’s sculptures. Then, that goes into my drawings. And then the thrift shop is my playground to search for fun objects that I can play with. And then, they merge together.

The figures, the eyes, the body parts, the faces in your works. Are those any specific people or memories? 

They’re just generic. But people say they look like me, and I kind of agree. 

The little details, like the shoes in the bottom of the frame in the show. Are those details you get carried away with while you’re making the work or are you’re solely trying to pin down the memory? 

It can be different from my drawings, as I make it in the 3-D. Sometimes I put the shoes inside to make it more dimensional. It’s very different to turn 2-D into 3-D.

Your titles also reference the theater, like “Fourth Wall.” Is there more to that interest for you? 

For me, watching theater is time that I can escape from reality; I thought that since I was a child. I couldn't stop thinking about the scenes of the theater and the stages. It is a world that is created just for the show, but actual people are acting and seeing the show. So it’s very layered. It felt very mysterious to me. 

There’s a film in the show, where some of your sculptures come to life as you play with them. How do you see film working within your practice? 

In the short film, my sculptures and myself appear as actors. There are times when I imagine certain scenes or write short scenarios while I make sculpture. Thinking, what if they are moving or have their own stories behind the curtain? I create an enigmatic atmosphere that offers a hypnagogic state of consciousness which occurs right before falling asleep. Layered, mysterious, and dreamlike.

You’ve previously described your sculptures as “talisman,” can you expand on what that means to you? Do all of your works serve that purpose? 

I believe that the process of making can make me feel comfortable. The actual sculpture can be but not that like every object is protecting me. Drawing in half-sleep and finding furniture from another origin. This whole process can be protecting and calming for myself. 

So you’re working on an upcoming show, tell me about that.

HERE Arts Center is an art organization that has shown theater, dance, music, and puppetry since 1993 so I am very excited that I could show my works with them. The exhibition is opening in March 2024 and I am currently making a new series for the show.

You previously said Joseph Cornell is an artist you’re into. Are there other art references that you look to? 

Joseph Cornell, Louise Nevelson. Definitely surrealism, drawing inspiration from the films of Luis Buñuel and Man Ray. I also love to read Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams.

Because of your insomnia, do you tend to work in the night?

I feel more emotional at night, so I can make something very fast. I’m not energetic at night, but my brain gets more emotional, thinking too much about things so I just want to turn my thoughts and emotions into the work. 

You just want to get them out of your head? 

Yeah, yeah. When I didn’t express my emotions and thoughts through work, I had a hard time. But now I am learning to use my anxiety and insomnia for the work. 

Part of this interview series is that I’m asking each artist to direct me to the next. So, who is an artist working today that you are intrigued by, and what is it about their practice you’re intrigued by?

Hanna Washburn, she’s also a sculptor. I wanted to introduce a sculptor, as I’m a sculptor and there are not as many sculptors as painters. We had an exhibition together once. Our work goes really well together. She uses recycled textile and she sews them, making these weird doll puppet shapes. It’s really touching when I saw them in person. They’re really fluffy and I wanted to hug them. I need this kind of work; my work is kind of scary but this is very calm.

Published November 26, 2023