Artist Jacqueline Rush Lee’s new  exhibition “Whorl,” will be on view at the East Hawai’i Cultural Center from April 6 to May 31, with an opening on April 5 at 6pm.

A Hawai’i-based artist originally from Northern Ireland, Lee creates conceptual objects by sculpting books, inserting them into the cavities of trees, and allowing nature to warp and desiccate the pages. The result is eerily reminiscent of individual human fingerprints – the “Whorl” of the title – while at the same time suggesting cultural artifacts.

In a press release Lee said, “I initiate chance occurrences by hand, hoping to create a meditation on the interconnectedness and precariousness of the relationship between nature and culture. Traces of the original text remain, but each object becomes a palimpsest – a document that bears remnants of its original text but which has been overwritten with a new narrative.”

Lee has exhibited widely, including at the Yale Art Gallery, the Fuller Craft Museum, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Hui No‘eau Visual Arts Center, and the Hawai’i Contemporary Museum. She holds Bachelor and Master degrees in Fine Arts from the University of Hawai’i.

For more information, visit ehcc.org or call 961-5711.  The East Hawai’i Cultural Center is located at 141 Kalakaua Street. Current gallery and office hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. The gallery is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Photo credit: EHCC