Jaye Rhee’s performance-based video installations explore what she refers to as “authentic desire.” In her work, she suggests the indeterminacy of time by presenting images that juxtapose apparently real-life scenarios against the backdrop of fake, yet seemingly authentic, environments. In Rhee’s four-channel video installation Tear, a simple action becomes a poignant gesture. An image of white cloth stretches across four screens; Rhee slowly walks through the screens ripping the fabric as she proceeds from one edge of the frame to the other, gesturing to perseverance and strength amid adversity. According to Rhee, “My goal is to create a new visual space in which artifice evaporates through the very naked presentation of images as naked materials. This ‘honest artifice’ would ultimately lead one into an experience of reflection about one’s own nostalgia.”
