Like most Chicagoans, Jin enjoyed Lake Michigan in a general way for many years. But because the lake is consistently present—a backdrop to the spectacle of the city—it’s possible for residents to forget the lake is even there.
“At some point, I realized I wanted to get to know the lake better, and in order to do that, I needed to photograph it over a long period of time,” Jin says. For some artists, a summer might have sufficed. But part of Jin’s method is to make deep commitments to certain subjects. So, once a week for the next five years, she traveled to a single location on Lake Michigan so she could take photographs.
“Part of what interests me is starting to pay attention to a certain thing and then therefore start to see it. Some of it has to do with curiosity, some with chance encounter,” Jin says. And sometimes the need to study something for a long time “has to do with the sheer complexity of the subject matter.”

“I am interested in beauty, and I find the landscape beautiful. But I want to make a landscape that’s more layered and complex. For me, that means having multiple kinds of emotions in the landscape, like the simultaneous presence of beauty and melancholy.“

– Jin Lee is a Chicago-based photographer whose project centers on forming a deeper relationship to places through close examination of their landscapes and built environments. A Professor of Art at Illinois State University, Jin has received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and the Illinois Arts Council grant, and has had solo shows of her work at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago Cultural Center, and Sioux City Art Center.

Jill Riddell wrote an essay for a catalogue for Jin’s show, Wind & Prairie, that you can read here. 

Jin is represented by Devening Projects in Chicago, and you can see photographs on her website. Also, she has a compelling Instagram, so check out @jinlee2019.