Haunting, disturbing and yet hopeful. Angela Lee’s works of art are more than the description of a few words. Unfortunately, Lee’s exhibit in the Union art gallery — “Be Still and Know” — ends on Jan. 30, so to see her work, I’ll try to give you a glimpse through my eyes.
Lee opens with a video of a woman, kneeling alone… is she alone? She is surrounded by shades of red, orange and yellow that drench a field of short grass, a faintly rippling lake and a distant line of trees on the horizon in the dying light. As time passes, she changes positions to stand, hands clasped in those of an out of focus man, and kneels again, clasped in his arms. He is not fully present — translucent like a memory, or even a ghost. Is he real, or just a memory she can’t let go of?
For me, the video took a moment to become clear.
“Why is that screen so grainy? He’s barely there. Why is that woman so sorrowful when this man, who clearly loves her, is embracing her?”
I was so caught up in the scene that I myself had trouble distinguishing between reality and memories.
Lee’s art combines gloomier themes such as grief with the brilliant hues of hope, warm colors that bring life to death’s grip on her characters. This can be off-putting, as it was for me. The colors were so warm and inviting — but the video’s theme was loss. Watching the video, it was hard to figure out whether the loss outweighed the bittersweetness of the memories. Though I could see the man, it was obvious that he was forever trapped inside the grieving woman’s memory. The work speaks to the comfort and intangibility of people who are gone — trapped only in our minds and picture frames. It’s not a feel-good picture; it’s a visual representation of what grief can feel like.
To be honest, I was surprised at the medium of this art. I’m used to canvas, even pottery and photographs. But a video? Lee’s gallery is filled with videos, ranging from a few seconds to several minutes long. Each work plays on a TV screen around the bare room. Rather than previous art exhibit of canvas or pottery, Lee uses visual images and videos in order to convey her message. Her subjects? A mourning woman and ghostly man, a lone woman lying in a dark stream and butterflies resting on a dead animal’s carcass. And yet, this medium captures the fleeting moments canvas rarely can. It’s no romantic comedy with a happy ending when the guy gets the girl — where no deep thought is truly necessary. Instead, it’s a reminder of the fragility of life and the careful balance between grief from things lost, and the clash of hope and death.
What message can a viewer gather from this art? To be honest, I gained twenty to thirty minutes of quiet from the outside clamor of people, homework and my raucous thoughts. Not only that, I was reminded of how fragile and precious life can be. The combination of death and life — grief and hope — translates to each of her works. Despite how uncomfortable death and grief are, there is a beauty to the realness behind it, and the memories left behind when losing someone you love.
In her artist’s statement, Lee writes, “No sooner than we leave, Home calls us back.” Why is Home capitalized? It is because she means more than the physical houses we call home.
“We are called to be still…and know that He is God,” Lee writes.
Each of her pieces has the touch of beauty and warmth of hope that could never go unrecognized — along with the flaws that sin brought into this world. After all, though living butterflies flutter their wings in their colorful glory, beneath them lies the carcass of one of God’s dead creations. Similarly, the woman grieving her lost companion brings the hope and joy buried in the memories and hopes for a Christian’s eternal destination while conveying the grief any loss produces. “Be still and know” calls us to know that there is more waiting for us in eternity than this physical grief and loss.
