A Trinity University art professor, Korean-born Jongwon Lee creates exquisite and subtle woodcuts. This exhibition features his most recent work all based on the golden mean, the mathematically determined perfect ratio or proportion used by artists and architects since classical times. For Jon Lee, the golden mean provides the perfect structure for a series of 20 woodcuts using simplified geometries and printed in soft gray ink on paper that the artist makes.

A Fine Line refers to two aspects of these prints. It describes perfectly Lee’s incredibly straight, clean lines that he achieves with handmade gouges and blocks of wood, a tour-de-force of the woodcutter’s art. It also relates to aesthetic concepts Lee explores in his work, most importantly the fine line between something and nothing. In other words, in this suite Lee pushes the limits of printmaking to see just how minimal, how spare, he can make his images and yet still have them understood as works of art, as art objects. The ink is so subtly applied that it is barely there, thus emphasizing the relationship of the thin film of ink on a sheet of paper, the very essence of printmaking.