//Tell Them I Said Hello//




Tell Them I Said Hello, portrays the identity issues among immigrants. Jinwoo Hwon Lee 이훤 shares his experience in form of poetic images.

Lee writes, 

“I was 19, when I came back by myself to America since being a toddler. 

I did not speak what everyone spoke. I knew no one. People in the small town noticed me by my color. Koreans born and raised in America thought I was too ‘Korean’. People back home thought I was too ‘American’. I was neither one of us nor one of them.

The eclectic black and white photographs in the series reflect the never resolved physical and emotional distance between two homes. The images hardly show a full face of a person. This signifies the scattered and undermined identity as a liminal. Oscillating between a citizen and an immigrant, I never felt fully understood or wholeheartedly considered. Some nuances were always dismissed.



In a greater context, the seemingly disjointed objects and people photographed in the series portray the alienated under different settings. The loose strings among the images are metaphors of many individuals’ firsthand testimonies. Joining this personal confession, viewers are invited to imagine their own version of alienation.”





Jinwoo Hwon Lee 이훤 (B. 1987) is a photographer and a poet, based in Chicago, US. Lee uses text and (or) images to narrate ongoing emotions as an immigrant. He focuses on sporadic sense of belonging and associated struggles experienced in form of alienation, separation and isolation.


While residing in the United States, Lee actively publishes his work through books, magazines and literary publications in both Korea and the United States. His work has been exhibited in Scotland, China, South Korea and the United States. 



Life Framer Gallery exhibited and collected Lee’s monochrome series <Tell Them I Said Hello> in 2019 and the Photography Curator of High Museum, Sarah Kennel, also curated the same series as part of the internationally juried group exhibition: <PORTFOLIO 2020>. The image, Intruded and Unapologetic, from the <Tell Them I Said Hello> was also exhibited in an internationally juried group exhibition curated by a Magnum photographer: Bruce Gilder. In 2019, Infinite Art Museum collected three images from Lee’s <Human Textures I> series. A year later, seven images of the same series were published as a detachable photo-zine in Korea. Curator Mary Stanley selected Lee as one of the noteworthy emerging photographers in 2019 and curated his work in the internationally juried group exhibition <On the Verge> at APG Gallery.


Lee debuted as a writer in 2014, winning the New Writer Award by <Literature and Consciousness> Magazine. Five years later, Lee received the honor of the Excellent Book of the Year Award from ARKO (Arts Council Korea) for his second photo poetry book: Let Us Not Be Too Desperate 우리 너무 절박해지지 말아요 (2018). In the book, Lee presents several poems in images, sometimes combined with text. Lee terms such a way of working, "Poem-ography". Lee’s first photo essay book, When Your Gaze and My Gaze Move Into Opposite Directions 당신의 정면과 나의 정면이 반대로 움직일 때 (2019), is quintessential Poem-ography. In the book, he anthropomorphizes objects, creating 120 images taken from their imagined perspectives with a prose.

 Lee continues to expand on the Poem-ography series. His works of Poem-ography have been published in several magazines and in anthologies. Paper Magazine currently commissions Lee to publish an alternating photo-essay and photo-poem series.




To see more of Jinwoo’s work, check out his website: www.PoetHwon.com

Or follow him on Instagram or twitter: @PoetHwon.





Image Label & Price for Editioned Prints

(Each image is editioned to 5 - comes with a certification and signature by the artist)



1. Standing In Between, 2019 – Pigment, 10”x20”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

2. Citizens, 2019 – Pigment, 10”x20”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 2/5)


3. Citizens II, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)


4. An Assimilated Discordance, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 2/5)


5. Absently Present, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

6. Not Answerable Questions, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

7. Almost Returnable Goods, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

8. A Border, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x20” , Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 2/5)

9. A Revolving Door, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

10. Intruded and Unapologetic, 2019 – Pigment, 18”x12”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 2/5)

11. Silence of the Doors, 2020 – Pigment, 18”x12”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 2/5)


12. Carefully Removed, 2019 – Pigment, 20”x20”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

13. Burning the Last Bridge, 2019 – Pigment, 18”x12”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

14. Non-protective Colors, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)


15. Forced to Settle, 2019 – Pigment, 18”x12”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)


16. A Foreign Fruit, 2020 – Pigment, 18”x12”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

17. Dissimilated Roots, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)


18. A Melting Name, 2019 – Pigment, 10”x20” , Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

19. Forced to Settle II, 2018 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)


20. Unanimously American II, 2018 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)


21. Unanimously American, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

22. A Fading Room in a Person, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 1/5)

23. A Scattered Man, 2019 – Pigment, 12”x18”, Print: $780 Framed: $1080 (Edition 2/5)