The Mayor's Office Gallery

GWISIN BALJAGUK (GHOST PRINTS)

By Timothy Hyunsoo Lee

In this exhibition, Timothy Hyunsoo Lee explores the experience of existing between cultures, never fully here nor there. Drawing from his life as a queer immigrant who arrived in New York City as an undocumented child, Lee examines how gestures of invisibility and hypervisibility function as survival strategies for immigrant communities navigating layered identities within hostile environments.

Lee's photosensitive cyanotype processes mirror the lexicon of immigration, with "exposure" functioning as a metaphor for assimilation. Through overexposure, images become ghostly, haunting the spaces they inhabit—much like his experience of being "like a ghost between two cultures, wandering aimlessly through both and belonging to neither." For him, abstraction is both visual language and lived condition, a method of camouflage enabling movement between identities.

Central to the exhibition is the artist’s investigation of mugwort, a plant species revered in Korean culture yet labeled invasive in the United States. Mugwort's dual status becomes a potent metaphor for the immigrant experience: thriving in unwelcoming ecosystems, present but unseen, vital yet unwanted. Lee is drawn to how these "undesirable" plants exist alongside the margins—in sidewalk cracks, at curb edges, around abandoned lots—much like the immigrant communities he grew up in. Like the complex root systems through which invasive species propagate beneath the surface, diasporic communities form networks of mutual aid that sustain migration across generations and beyond biological ties. The use of gold, often an offering in Asian cultures, simultaneously evokes notions of wealth and the American dream: shiny on the outside, concealing complex realities beneath.

The exhibition brings together works that dance flawlessly between figuration and abstraction in the same way that the artist has grown accustomed to “code-switch” to survive both as an immigrant and as a queer man. Perpetually switching between masks of existence, the works trace pathways of migration and performances of belonging. 

Gwisin Baljaguk serves as a tribute to diasporic communities that have called Boston home, inserting these metaphors into a civic space where transit and public policy intersect. Amidst nationwide conversations around who deserves to belong, the exhibition raises urgent questions: How do we label invasive species? How genuine is belonging if it requires constant performance? What version of ourselves gets to flourish and which ones appear only as ghosts?

Timothy Hyunsoo Lee is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores the relationship between rituals of (in)visibility, community and the abstracted, queer body. Born in South Korea and raised in New York City, he received his B.A. in Neuroscience, Biology and Studio Art from Wesleyan University and his MFA in computational arts from Goldsmiths, University of London. Lee’s background in laboratory research and emerging technologies ushers in an empirical approach to investigating the materiality and precision in his practice, his interests in legacies of craft, representation, and labor, that is complemented with the existential urgency of growing up between cultures.

Timothy’s work has been exhibited at notable institutions such as the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Orlando Museum of Art, the Studio Museum, The Wallach Art Gallery of Columbia University, The YoungArts Foundation Gallery, Real Jardín Botánico, and La Casa Encendida, with a public project with the MTA Arts & Design (New York).

This exhibition is organized by Galleries and Exhibitions Manager, Mariana Rey in dialogue with the artist. To learn more about the artist or inquire about a work please email mariana.rodriguezrey@boston.gov.