Artist Statement: About Segmentation Series
The Segmentation series began with a fascination with cellular biology—the process by which a single unit divides to form a complex organism, and the translucent structures of embryonic life. Biology renders life legible by staining it; this work reverses that gesture—color is laminated deep inside, then withheld beneath a lapped surface. Across two decades, the method has held steady—solid glass cut, laminated, and ground back into form. What changes is the interior.
Rather than offering full transparency, the material diffuses light and limits direct access, allowing only partial visibility into the structure. What is seen is never complete; internal variation is present but cannot be fully grasped from a single viewpoint. Between full visibility and complete opacity, translucency describes a range of conditions—neither total knowledge nor total absence, but something in between.
Geometry becomes a way of thinking through perception, structure, and difference. The cube and the cuboid are not fixed or opposing conditions but positions within a continuum. Subtle differences in proportion or angle may be measurable but not immediately perceptible, allowing variation to exist without being clearly recognized. Such differences echo those between individuals—present, yet not always perceived; distinctions remain unseen even as judgments are formed. An almost-cube is more interesting than a perfect one.
Rather than offering full transparency, the material diffuses light and limits direct access, allowing only partial visibility into the structure. What is seen is never complete; internal variation is present but cannot be fully grasped from a single viewpoint. Between full visibility and complete opacity, translucency describes a range of conditions—neither total knowledge nor total absence, but something in between.
Geometry becomes a way of thinking through perception, structure, and difference. The cube and the cuboid are not fixed or opposing conditions but positions within a continuum. Subtle differences in proportion or angle may be measurable but not immediately perceptible, allowing variation to exist without being clearly recognized. Such differences echo those between individuals—present, yet not always perceived; distinctions remain unseen even as judgments are formed. An almost-cube is more interesting than a perfect one.
I.M. (Im) Perfect, glass, 7 x 7.25 x 7 in. 2025
I.M. (Im)Perfect Cuboid
A cube carries a promise—equal dimensions, right angles, a form stable and resolved. This work resembles a cube but does not keep that promise. Its proportions deviate, subtly enough that the difference is measurable yet rarely perceived. The deviation is not a failure of craft but a deliberate condition of the form, as imperfection is a condition of being.
One segment is absent. It is not lost or broken; it was never there—an inheritance of absence carried within the structure, the way incompleteness is carried within a life.
Inside, light passes through layers that are never fully visible at once. Each position offers a partial view; the whole withholds itself from any single vantage. A person is known the same way.
One segment is absent. It is not lost or broken; it was never there—an inheritance of absence carried within the structure, the way incompleteness is carried within a life.
Inside, light passes through layers that are never fully visible at once. Each position offers a partial view; the whole withholds itself from any single vantage. A person is known the same way.
CUBE SEGMENTATION: TRANSLUCENT STILLNESS, glass, 7.25 x 7.25 x 7.25 in. 2025
CUBE SEGMENTATION: ATMOSPHERIC GEOMETRY, glass, 7.25 x 7.25 x 7.25 in. 2025
GREEN OVOID DIATOM, glass, 11 x 8 x 8 in. 202
GREEN TETRAHEDRON DIATOM, glass, 10 x 9 x 9 in. 2024
MITOSIS, glass, 8.5 x 14.5 in. 2019, Loewe Foundation Craft Prize Finalist work
GREEN PARALLELEPIPED SEGMENTATION, glass, 7.75 x 15 x 6.5 in. 2023
ORANGE GOLD OVOID SEGMENTATION, glass, 10 x 8 in. 2024
MULTI-COLOR CUBE, glass, 6.25 x 6.25 x 6.25 in. 2024
MONOCHROMATIC CUBOID, glass, 8.75 x 8.25 x 8.25 in. 2023
SPACE, glass, 7 x 12 in. 2021
DIATOM SEGMENTATION, glass, 5.75 x 12.25 in. 2018
WHITE GREEN DIATOM SEGMENTATION, glass, 8.5 x 10 x 8.5 in. 2020
GREEN YELLOW DIATOM SEGMENTATION II, glass, 5.75 x 12 x 12 in. 2020
GREEN YELLOW DIATOM SEGMENTATION I, glass, 8.5 x 12 in. 2020
GREEN COSMARIUM SEGMENTATION, glass, 7.25 x 10 x 7.25 in. 2018
CAMELLIA (Commissioned by Chanel; in the Chanel Collection), glass, 5.5 x 12.2 in. 2017
PARALLELEPIPED SEGMENTATION, glass, 9 x 12 x 9.75 in. 2017
WHITE-ORANGE CHROMOSOME SEGMENTATION, glass, 7 x 12 x 16 in. 2017
HEAD-THORAX-ABDOMEN, WHITE EMBRYO SEGMENTATION, glass, 3, 7.5 x 13 x 7.5 in. 2014
HEAD-THORAX-ABDOMEN, WHITE DROSOPHILA EMBRYO SEGMENTATION, glass, 6.3 x 9.8 x 6 in. 2013
CELL-BUILDING BLOCK, glass, 14 x 14 x 14 in. 2016
BLUE-YELLOW CUBOID SEGMENTATION, glass, 10.5 x 9 x 5 in. 2015
ORANGE CYLINDER SEGMENTATION, glass, 5.7 x 11.5 in. 2017, Collection of Barry Art Museum
CELL CUBE WITH PURPLE MANIPULATION, glass, 9 x 8 1/4 x 8 5/8 in. 2012, Collection of Corning Museum of Glass
"Jiyong Lee has balanced this skill with a rigorous conceptual development. To me, this is what makes his work superior."
— Tina Oldknow, Former Curator of Modern and Contemporary Glass, The Corning Museum of Glass, quoted in "Night And Day" American Craft, 2013
“Beautiful, enigmatic, and organized by a logic that seems just out of reach, Lee’s pieces hint at the unknowable potential packed into even the tiniest building blocks of all living things.”
— Susie J. Silbert, Former Curator of Postwar & Contemporary Glass, The Corning Museum of Glass, “Mysterious Nature”, 2016