Orange Seed Segmentation, 2009; acid etched glass



Purple & Green Embryo Segmentation hot sculptured, cut, assembled glass 5.5" x 11.5" x 8"

Purple & Yellow Segmentation hot sculptured, cut, assembled glass 8" x 12" x 6.5"



Orange & Magenta Embryo Segmentation hot sculptued, cut, assembled glass 6.5" x 12.5" x 7"

Jiyong Lee’s Segmentation Series is inspired by his fascination with cell division. He works with glass that has simultaneous transparency and opacity; two qualities that metaphorically represent the clarity and mysteries of biology.




Homage to DNA, 2008; acid etched glass; 14½

Jiyong Lee is an assistant professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where he teaches as Head of the Glass Program. Lee was born and raised in Korea.

The deceptive simplicity and understated intricacy of Lee’s compositions represent the contradictory relationship between clarity and complexity found within life. Similar to the way “cells start to segment and become a life,” the uniquely refined transclucent laminated glass surface suggests the mysterious qualities of cells, and on a larger scale, the ambigiuity of our temporal existence. As the viewer moves around Lee’s objects the play of light transforms the sculpture into startling new forms which play on our perceptions and our expectations.

Ji Yong Lee

Rediscovery 0608, 2006, kiln-cast glass, 15 x 15 x 2 in.



Rediscovery 0609, 2006, kiln-cast glass, 15 x 11 x 10 in.



Rediscovery 100306 (2009). Kiln cast glass, 12.5"h x 9.5"w x 5"d.

A Korean professor Sungsoo Kim, working at the Cleveland Institute of Art, puts his sculptures named ‘Rediscovery: New Glass Sculpture’ on public view through his first U.S. solo exhibition. The sculptures that look like a semiprecious stone – carved with utmost care – are actually crafted from recycled glass and Styrofoam packaging materials. The definitive artworks are the medium for the artist to express his concern over an important environmental issue: Pollution.



Rediscovery 08001 (2009). Kiln cast glass, 40"h x 100"w x 10"d.



Detail of Rediscovery 08001 (2009). Kiln cast glass, 40"h x 100"w x 10"d.

In my work with Styrofoam, I try to find something concealed in it. The explicit purpose of this material is to protect products while they are in transit. As such, this material has a vital role in the economic machine, but ultimately it becomes trash. Its only value is conferred to it by the market value of the product it protects.

That value is lost as soon as the product it protects is removed. The depreciation is astronomical from a consumer-commodity standpoint, but I think there is still something valuable in it, that the packaging has value as an object itself. My work of recycling packing Styrofoam is then to seek the ‘value’ which is unseen in its material reality. By taking advantage of a particular type of object - packing Styrofoam - I am rediscovering the concept of ‘object’ that has been utilized in art since the turn of the twentieth century.

Sung Soo Kim