So Youn Lee is a Korean artist who creates paintings that look like the pastel colored marshmallows in children's breakfast cereal. She focuses on creating iterations of Mango, her colorful, kawaii, androgynous character representing self-acceptance & inner peace.
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“The character Mango told me a lot about myself. When I first came to the U.S. I spoke no English at all & I realized that I had to observe people very carefully to understand their intentions. I used vision as my main tool, this is why Mango’s eyes are so big. They represent my curiosity, strength & hope for the future.”
SRC: The Korea Times
Over the past 5 years, So Youn has established herself as a young gallery superstar. She has done group exhibitions at all the hippest galleries & events in the US, including Supersonic Invitational at Spoke Art, Miami Basel, Thinkspace, Corey Helford, Gallery Nucleus as well as several shows throughout Asia. She's now graduating to more & more solo exhibits.
You may have noticed some similarities between So Youn's work & Japanese artist Hikari Shimoda. They both explore pop art portrait variations of a childlike, anime influenced character with large, glimmering, mysterious eyes. Hikari's art children are all slightly different with similar defining features & a much darker vibe, while So Youn's, Mango is definitively light, soft & positive.
“Meeting Hikari was a fortunate coincidence or even fate. I was in Los Angeles at my agent’s house & it turned out Hikari was staying there for a show. She doesn’t speak in English that much & I don’t speak in Japanese, so we didn’t talk a lot."
SRC: The Korea Times
“I was questioning why I didn’t just draw what I wanted & the answer was because of status. I wanted to be accepted by my peers & be accepted as a certain type of artist that Korea requires based on other people’s values. That was holding me back for almost 10 years.”
SRC: The Korea Times
As some of you already know, one of my favorite aspects of art is witnessing an artist's growth over time. If you check out So Youn's archive you can actually see her character, Mango coming to fruition. Between 2011 & 2014 she experimented with many techniques & forms to achieve her current signature style. She worked a lot in black & white using Pointilism over extensive areas.
Finally, she realized Mango as we know now by moving to the USA, freeing herself from external expectations. She has spent the last 4 years, building her body of work, exploring Mango in other mediums like sculpture, toys & murals while showing around the world.
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Surprisingly, it isn't that usual for artists to focus on a single character, churning out countless versions of their personified theme. I'm reminded of Taiwanese street artist Mister OhGay, Chinese painter Zhang Yuxi's, Little Yellow Boy & probably the most famous, Yue Minjun's Laughing Man.
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