JIYOUN LEE-LODGE: WAVES
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE EXHIBITION
SEPTEMBER 25-OCTOBER 31
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge is a Korean artist currently based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her work explores identity, adaptation, and vulnerability—particularly through the lens of immigration, motherhood, and the evolving psychological influence of social media and artificial intelligence. Through painting, drawing, installation, and public art, she moves between realism and abstraction, drawing inspiration from surrealism and animation to reflect shifting perspectives of self and place.
Since 2018, Jiyoun’s ongoing Waterman series has embodied the experience of transition and cultural negotiation. These fluid compositions symbolize the continuous shaping of identity in unfamiliar environments. They float within delicately rendered backdrops inspired by Utah’s landscapes and linear patterns, oscillating between recognition and abstraction, much like the artist’s evolving sense of home.
Public art is central to Jiyoun’s practice. Most recently, she was selected to give the beloved SLC 9th & 9th whale its new mural, Open Your Eyes. Modern West is thrilled to feature a selection of the artist’s Waterman paintings in conjunction with the official unveiling of the mural on October 3, 2026. All artworks below are available for acquisition through Modern West.
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge | Waterman Waves in Circle 13, 2023 | acrylic and ink on canvas | 12 in. diameter | $950
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge | Waterman Waves in Circle 09, 2023 | acrylic and ink on canvas | 12 in. diameter | $950
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge | Waterman Waves in Circle 11, 2023 | acrylic and ink on canvas | 12 in. diameter | $950
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge | Waterman Waves in Circle 12, 2023 | acrylic and ink on canvas | 12 in. diameter | $950
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge | Waterman Waves in Circle 14, 2023 | acrylic and ink on canvas | 12 in. diameter | $950
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge | Waterman Waves in Circle 10, 2023 | acrylic and ink on canvas | 12 in. diameter | $950
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge | Waterman - In Thoughts #2, 2023 | acrylic and ink on canvas | 30 x 40 in. | $5,000
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge | Waterman - In Thoughts #1, 2023 | acrylic and ink on canvas | 30 x 40 in. | $5,000
ARTIST Q&A
What inspired you to start the Waterman series?
When I moved to Utah from New York, I felt like I had landed in a beautiful yet unfamiliar landscape—majestic mountains, wide skies, but also a place where I didn’t see myself reflected. It was quiet in a way that made me hear my own internal noise more clearly. I began tracing my daily life, photographing what I saw, then outlining these scenes in delicate lines—like trying to make sense of a new language, a fragile new reality. Into these traced landscapes, I inserted a body—sometimes mine, sometimes imagined. A half-bare, amorphous figure made of water in motion, caught mid-transformation. That figure became Waterman.
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge
Waterman - In Thoughts #1, 2023
acrylic and ink on canvas
30 x 40 in.
$5,000
Water is many things to me: nostalgia for the sea that surrounds both South Korea and New York; fear of drowning in the unknown… I met others who also felt like outsiders—searching for identity, for community, under a dominant culture that often flattens nuance. Waterman became not just my story, but a collective one.
How did you come to the illustrative style of your Waterman figures?
My style draws from many roots: Eastern ink painting, Western surrealism, animation concept art, and comic books. It’s both fluid and precise, delicate yet bold. The Waterman figures are drawn with sweeping brushstrokes—bodies in motion, animating and shifting. Waterman is a symbol of change and resistance within us… That’s the tension I wanted to express—between visibility and erasure, belonging and alienation. The line, like identity, shifts depending on how closely you pay attention.
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge
Waterman Waves in Circle 11, 2023
acrylic and ink on canvas
12 in. diameter
$950
How did this body of work inform the Open Your Eyes mural?
The Waterman and Wave paintings have always been about water as a stand-in for identity in flux — the way a body of water never holds one shape, one color, one mood. Moving from canvas to the whale sculpture at 9th & 9th felt like a natural, if much larger, extension of that same question. Out of the Blue / Open Your Eyes takes the same wave language — color drawn from the Great Salt Lake and Utah skies, a gradient instead of a hard edge — and scales it up into something the whole community moves through and lives alongside. The dots across the whale nod to diversity, the eyes to kindness and awakeness, and the whale itself to community — so in a lot of ways, this piece is the studio work stepping outside the gallery and into public space.
Behind the scenes of the "Open Your Eyes" mural process. Images courtesy of the artist.
Behind the scenes of the "Open Your Eyes" mural process. Images courtesy of the artist.
Behind the scenes of the "Open Your Eyes" mural process. Images courtesy of the artist.
Behind the scenes of the "Open Your Eyes" mural process. Images courtesy of the artist.
Behind the scenes of the "Open Your Eyes" mural process. Images courtesy of the artist.
Behind the scenes of the "Open Your Eyes" mural process. Images courtesy of the artist.
Behind the scenes of the "Open Your Eyes" mural process. Images courtesy of the artist.
Learn more about Jiyoun’s work here. For more information or to inquire on availability, contact us at info@modernwestfineart.com.
For more information on artwork details and acquisition, please contact us at info@modernwestfineart.com.