Passion – The Dance of the Scarecrow by William Lee
Written by Gu-Won Kang (Artist, Vergil America Magazine)
A scarecrow is a puppet in the shape of human, dressed in old clothes, which the farmers place in the middle of the fields to stop the birds from ruining the crop field. Because of its ineffectiveness, the word scarecrow also has a different meaning to refer someone who is useless, fake, or pretentious. In the Western culture, it is also viewed as a symbol of fear or it also refers to a baseball batter who got 3 strikes out without even batting once. The theme of William Lee’s artwork plays with different meanings of the scarecrow by illustrating the relationship between effort and result and also between the reality and the imagination through displaying the connection of the movements and dance to portray the excitements in life.
When you look at his techniques, colors, and shape of the artwork more carefully, you first notice the freedom in the picture. At that very moment, the genuine and childlike heart that is expressed in the drawing captivates you. Rather than restricting himself from using certain techniques, he freely draws wherever his heart and hands follow. It is almost like he is unraveling a complete new picture. The figures are semiabstract with the silhouette of a moving person illustrated on the canvas. I assume the artist wants to personify the stillness of the scarecrow with more dynamic movements in order for the scarecrow to do his job, distracting and scaring birds away from the field. It also makes me happy to see the artist’s abyss of effort to not to regulate the object through its shape and form. To not conform to the standard means that he is showing his humility and modesty to the world. The human figure in the canvas reminds us of the reeling of the clown and the dancing of the mask, leading us to purify our mind. The reeling and the dancing of the body also allow us to enjoy the Pungmul band, Korean traditional percussion band, at its full sounds. At the same time, you feel like the screen is playing Arirang from far away that makes you imagine singing the song with other hand in hand. People often consider art as a space art, but I think that it maybe is closer to arts based on tempo. His choice of color contains balanced combination of warm and cold colors and everything between. The increased brightness of the picture brings happiness and by alternating freely between the usage of knife and the brush conveys both tension and relaxation, which secures the concreteness and abstractness together. Although everyone experiences the feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure throughout their life, the artist seems to embrace the blessings and the joy of life more than other feelings, solely based upon his choices of color. Recently, the scarecrow has been replaced by animals like rabbit or goats or even by flowers. This shows the artist’s realization of the world that everything in nature is connected and intertwined. We, humans, have lived very self-centered life, which resulted a severe crisis in our environment. William Lee’s approach toward the canvas consequently portrays that everything on earth is equal.
His three dimensional artwork is not perfect or precise, but expressing a bit loose, humorous and unbalanced look brings something genuine and more personal. This is only possible because the artist’s humble heart to admit his own flaws and mistakes. By showing his inadequacy, he is inversely showing what it really means to be perfect. Humans are, by in nature, an insecure being and thus we can enjoy much more happiness and can be touched by its incompleteness. And this is why William Lee’s Scarecrow deeply moved my heart.
You hear the word ‘healing’ a lot these days and this makes me think that the world is in a lot of pain and is in dire need of change. It also reflects the corruption and pollution of the earth. People are wasting way more energy than one should and are slowly destroying the earth. William Lee hopes to strengthen the current devastation of the earth with better air and water condition. Since our body is made up of 70% water, Lee’s reflections makes us realize how weak we are in front of our fate of birth and death. But we will dance again in joy after recognizing the familiar movements of the scarecrow from our hometown. As the novelist Lee Oisoo’s view of scarecrow as ‘human’s very first robot with the purpose of agriculture’, I am hoping to witness the true revival of the Scarecrow.
