<Daily Today, “Lee Aeri’s Picture Reading ? Another ‘Me’ Hidden behind the Mask,” ? 07/02/2015>

‘Persona,’ originated from the Latin word meaning the masks that actors and actresses wore on stage, means the social mask that individuals use to deal with what happens as they live in the society. To put it in easy terms, it is related to an individual’s role that the group expects and the individual’s awareness that the society demands.

Actors and actresses experience a variety of jobs and lives through the roles with many different jobs and personalities. The result that the actor or the actress does his or her best in the assigned role brings a great popularity and success not only to the individual and the producers, but also, further, to the society. This will be the same not only for actor but also to ordinary people. People try to adapt to the society that they belong. They see the characteristics revealed by considering things, such as work, title, age, and family relations, as a part of ‘Persona’ and manage their facial impression with the face that the society wants according to each situation.

The artist Na Harin shows the persona element that she realized during her early years of an actress’s experience, confusion, and wandering through clowns. Begun with self-portrait, she has been working to reflect the images of the modern people. She saw clowns as professional characters that hide their images and act with wit according to the surrounding circumstances, so the most ideal human character that the modern people pursue. Also, she represents the clown as a man with a amicable personality that both the society and an individual want by not being confused of self and persona and properly distinguishing them.

The work “Outstanding Clowns” series has the stand-out unique expressions of faces using various materials and brilliant colors. The expression technique presents even stronger images, realistic but each image being distorted, and through roughly, and sometimes delicately, expressed lines and letters, a concrete communication is expressed. She expressed the persona observed in the artist’s point of view with the elements that individuals in the modern society consider important, such as faces with various individualities, hair styles, eye colors, lip colors, etc. Yet, such personal images can be the persona that the society demands when seen differently.

The ideal human character that the society in the 21th century demands is an emotionally competent person with healthy and positive thinking and leadership. Especially, the artist Na Harin presents the process that people grow more in the flow of time and the changes in various situations, emotionally through her own unique clowns.

I expect the best persona that they want, another ‘Me,’ Superwoman, Capable Man, Yes Man, etc., rather than ‘Me under the mask.

-Lee Aeri (Ph. D. in Art / Visiting Professor at Hyupsung University)