Jack Lee

It’s Just a Preference

by Joanna Kitto:

Jack Lee’s work gave us an embodied experience when we visited the space. As I watched the fragmented, distorted, entangled bodies curl endlessly in on themselves, I felt a shiver run across my skin. It was not unnerving, but it was a mix of sensations – at once surprising, comforting, and exhilarating.

Jack’s is a singular work with a compelling approach to materiality and process.

What Jack proposes about the experience of race, gender, sexuality and corporeality is complex – and he asks us to question our preconceptions towards masculinity and unrealistic body ideals.

Here we see abstracted, fleshy bodies of queer Asian men. Skin, nipples, orifices – all equally weighted in the loving way they are treated. Jack shares a point of view with the writings of feminist philosopher and psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray - who proposes that orifices are a zone of exchange and connection. Connection here is key.

It's Just a Preference breaks down – completely dismantles – notions around certain bodies being worthy of intimacy. Here, all are worthy of this truly human experience. Jack’s work feels very much like an exteriorisation of unconscious processes in which the conflicting and contradictory impulses that govern intimate relationships – and our relationships with our own bodies – are laid bare.