Jungmin Lee – Dreams and Found Materials

Discovering the imaginative process behind Lee’s unique, tactile creations

Jungmin Lee’s art, inspired by childhood, dreams, and cultural heritage, blends personal and collective memory through mixed media, creating intimate, miniature worlds that celebrate family, tradition, and the timeless warmth of nostalgia.

Jungmin Lee’s art transports us to a world rich with nostalgia, dreams, and the tactile warmth of memory. This talented South Korean artist and designer, a graduate with distinction from the ArtCenter College of Design, blends storytelling with a love for found and mixed media to create intricate, evocative pieces. Her works invite viewers into intimate moments of family gatherings, childhood explorations, and even dreamscapes—transforming everyday materials into portals to the past. Lee’s creativity is steeped in the heritage of her culture, tracing her roots through memories of her grandparents’ home, traditional rituals, and cherished heirlooms, reimagined into vivid visual narratives.

Throughout her work, Lee demonstrates a profound ability to weave together personal and collective memory. Her piece Cabinet, a layered collage of stamps, stickers, and pages from her mother’s notebooks, powerfully bridges her own life and history with a broader cultural experience. With each brushstroke and piece of found material, she crafts a miniature world where fragments of her heritage live on. It is through these meticulously crafted “miniatures” that Lee explores themes of belonging, identity, and emotional resilience. In this exclusive interview, WOWwArt Magazine delves into the inspirations, creative process, and unique perspectives that make Jungmin Lee’s art both intensely personal and universally resonant.

Jungmin Lee captivates audiences with her profound storytelling, transforming ordinary objects into extraordinary visual narratives that resonate with universal human warmth.

Can you describe how your childhood experiences in South Korea influenced your artistic themes and subjects?

When I was young, my family liked to go on trips to visit big, old trees, such as the 800 year old Ginkgo tree in Jangsudong, Incheon, South Korea. In the beginning, I didn’t know why we were going to see trees. But as time went by, these trips became my memory points to spiritually go back as the place of family gatherings. This nostalgic warmth is also connected to my grandparents and visiting their home. I appreciate their time to cook delicious foods like Ramyun, soybean paste soup, seasoned spinach, and more. I remember when my grandparents brought small dogs to home on a cold winter evening. I remember when my family prepared food and visited the parents of my grandparents at the cemetery, covered with snow. These moments are living inside of me, and art helps to bring me the forgotten past. Because I am now far away from my grandparents, this childhood feels like a dream. Drawing, painting, and sculpting make me remember what I enjoyed, when I felt a strong emotion, which lets me slow down in my present life, and rethink why I want to study art.

What role do dreams play in your creative process, and how do you incorporate them into your work?

Dreams to me are uncertain, blurry, weird so it gives me open possibilities to experiment. It can be changed during the thinking process, or sometimes the new pieces of another dream come up after sleep. Memory is changing and they are fantastical. Anything can happen so I appreciate that dream gives me free ground to start from. It represents to me less pressure and motivates me to switch the storyline, draw without a plan, combine found materials, or maybe erase and restart.

How do you use mixed media in your artwork, and what materials do you find most inspiring?

I like to travel in my house to collect, find new materials, such as trash, recycle bins or old boxes in the garage. One day, I start with one object, then maybe the next day, I cut it out. Another day, I might paint over, or look over the magazine to find the image. I think I make it in the process with less plan, and I like to practice these experiments with different types and scales of the media. These days, I am also interested in learning more about watercolor and brush. I enjoy playing with water and unexpectedness with where the inks would go and share its feelings.

Can you explain your concept of a “miniature world” in your paintings and how it reflects collective and individual dynamics?

I think the practice of thinking about a “miniature” helps me to observe the world in a simple way or to view from a far away. The making process is also like playing with a toy or going back to when I was young. Inside of the miniature world, the creatures and houses seemed to feel safe and open a way to start an adventure. Miniature drawings or objects become able to hold in hands, move around, or invite me to make my own world. I think this process of creating a small environment gives cosiness and warmth to my mind, and I hope this feeling could help to share the playful spirits and healing aspects of art.

How do cultural backgrounds and customs shape the characters and narratives in your art?

From my memories in Korea, the traditional foods and ancestral rites with my family come to my mind. Often, my family members and their personality became my starting point to sketch the unknown creatures or my imaginary friend characters. In another moment, grandparents become the main characters who show me the steps of Jesa, Korean ancestral rituals, or as the biographed figure by interviewing with them. The folk tales and traditional music in Korea help me to learn where I come from, teach me new languages that were used in the past, or how ancestors lived their lives.

What psychological observations do you hope to convey through the interactions between collective power and individual power in your work?

To me, collective power guides me the sympathy that can be made with wider people, and individual power as the departure from personal memory. My work can begin with my personal background or interactions within myself. But my bigger hope is to observe the influences of childhood to adulthood and the conflicted minds of people, which I like to try sharing this diverse human emotions in art so that one can feel connected or belong. I hope my work can help more people to dream and imagine, especially to feel free in their state of mind.

EDITOR’S HIGHLIGHTS