International Center for Photography, 2004

In a series of elegant photograms known as "Untitled Head," Jin Lee skillfully manipulates historical antecedents to collapse the categories of individual identity and general typology. These strict profile images, made by projecting light against the heads and shoulders of several female models, recall the tradition of cut-paper silhouettes that thrived during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Lee’s accomplished hands, however, this age-old technique achieves an unprecedented degree of precision. The portraits are circumscribed by extremely fine contours that describe subtle variations of postures, facial features, and hairstyle, tempting the viewer to determine the specific age, ethnicity, and race of subject. Yet Lee also thwarts fixed identifications by presenting the silhouettes as white shapes on black grounds, a tactic that reverses the genre’s traditional format. By way of this simple inversion, the artist renders profile as a negative space, a ghostly black state that readily absorbs the projection of multiple fantasies.