David Castillo Gallery is proud to present Susan Lee-Chun’s first solo exhibition at the gallery,Everybody Suz-ercise! The artist has exhibited in three previous group shows at the gallery.

Lee-Chun continually investigates cultural stereotypes, as manifested in a narrative based on three individual performing egos: Sue, Sioux, and Su.  The three “Suz” personify the strong contrast between these different perspectives and voices, and dialogue on the polarizing impacts of race and identity politics.

Performing as the three Suz over the years, Lee-Chun has manufactured their homes, sewed their clothes, partaken in their rituals, staged their interactions, and promoted their merchandise.  As the combined symbolic entity, “Suz” develops an exciting new fitness wave, Suz-ercise.  Everybody Suz-ercise! functions as an experience based on the familiar construct of the branded gym.  The “Faux-real” venture creates a subversive undertone about a company pitching an unrealistic and fantastical product/activity/lifestyle.

In this ongoing performance project of the last several years, Susan Lee-Chun creates a symmetrical illusion of reality, thereby breaking down the idea of hierarchies of identity, happiness, society, or fulfillment in general.  The utopian vision sought in the current body of work is an extension of an entire literary and artistic genre that dates as far back as 1516 with Sir Thomas More’s novel Utopia.  Susan Lee-Chun explores how perceived realities are themselves illusions, and how the audience can visualize new possibilities from the expected norm (paradigmatic shifts).  In Everybody Suz-ercise! the artist accomplishes this through choreographed performances and multi-media sculpture and installation.

Susan Lee-Chun was born in Seoul, Korea and lives and works in Miami.  In 2004, the artist received her MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Since the summer of 2009, Susan Lee-Chun participated in two artist residences: the Bemis Center in Omaha, NE and Three Walls in Chicago, IL.  Both residencies were instrumental in the development of the current body of work forEverybody Suz-ercise! She has exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad.  Her work is in public and private collections, including the Miami Art Museum.

Susan Lee-Chun