Yujin Lee's "Painting Conversation: Stories of Rice-Thieves" cushion series is a special reinterpretation of her collaborative and process-oriented art practice in the form of cushions. Exclusively available at Iron Velvet Art, these cushions are based on 18 original paintings created with natural paint on naturally dyed linen. Each cushion represents a unique painting that holds the stories of participating artists.

This project is a collaboration led by Yujin Lee, involving participants from Jeju, South Korea—Jaka, Lee Moongyu, Bae Jungja, SEHA, Park Shinhye, Debbie Susana Mantik, Lee Sukhyun, Ruangsak Anuwatwimon, Guhn Kim—and from Fukuoka, Japan—Miyakawa Midori, Kim Kunchul, Nomoto Reika, Kim Charlotte Kakoschke, Shiomallow, Kawanobe Osamu, Jong YuGyong, SoZo, and Go Ryoka.

The artwork "Stories of Rice-Thieves" is a continuation of Lee's "Painting Conversation" series that began in 2013. Following the first "conversation" piece created as a video in 2015 with New York-based artist Matthew Buckingham, the 2023 version features 18 collaborators from Jeju and Fukuoka. During the process, participants sit across from the artist, painting together on a single piece of cloth while sharing personal stories about food, especially what Koreans call the "rice thief." During the exhibition, these paintings were also presented as table mats where food was served.

*Yujin Lee plans to donate most of the proceeds from the sale of this cushion series to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF).

The cushion was designed and hand-sawed by Oh Mikyung, a Jeju-born artist with a BFA in Korean Painting from Ewha Womans University. Since 2017, she has been living at her family's farmhouse in Jeju, where she works with textiles and creates traditional Korean hanbok. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she began transforming photographs from her daily walks into wearable art.

Size

40 x 52 cm (15 3/4 x 20 1/2 inches)

Material

Cotton 

Year

Painting done in 2023/Cushion made in 2024

Your order will be carefully prepared and shipped directly by the artist, and you will receive a notification once it's on its way. Due to the unique nature of this artist's work, we typically do not offer returns or refunds. However, if your purchase arrives severely damaged, please contact us—we are here to help. For more details, please consult our FAQ. 

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Yujin Lee (born in 1986 in Daegu, South Korea) is an artist and a collaborator who wears many other hats; she is a writer and translator, a caretaker of land and animals, as well as a host of an alternative artist residency that she began in 2019 at her farmhouse in Jeju Island, South Korea. Lee holds an MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University School of the Arts and a BFA in Painting from Cornell University. Lee’s selected group exhibitions include: Migrating Humans - Homo Migratio, Jeju Museum of Art, Jeju (2023); How to Love Many in Many Ways, Iron Velvet, New York (2022); Global Week: Time-Space Resonance, Culturetank, Seoul (2021). She also participated in artist residencies including Art Omi in upstate New York (2022) and organized international exchange projects in partnership with organizations such as Heritage Space in Hanoi, Vietnam (2023) and Void Art Centre in Derry, Northern Ireland (2024).