NIKKI S LEE : The Chameleon

I remember seeing this picture a few months ago. I don't know why I fell in love with this photograph, but I just did.

Just seemed like a casual picture of Latinas in America. The halter neck and high waisted denim jeans, tacky and fake gold jewellery, dagger nails and tightly slicked back hair. 

But one of them is a fake Latina. 

You may pick the one that sitting down as she has Asian features, but at first I bet you just assumed she was a Latin girl? Probably half Latin and half Asian? 

Indeed, the girl sitting down is the fake one. Her name is Nikki S Lee and she is a Korean artist. 

Look back and the picture again. Doesn't it just look like the girls are both good friends, posing outside their home after putting up the clothes on the washing line? Nikki S Lee is so talented at posing casually. I wish I could too, without my hands getting clammy and my face turning hot when a camera is pointed at me. 

I call her 'The Chameleon' because she is able to be immersed into any subculture group in New York, pushing the boundaries of identity. I wouldn't say she's an actress dressed up in costumes to fit the role of different identities, think of her more as a method actress, going through extraordinary transformations whilst become a member of her new community. She would not only know how to imitate the ethnic and social group characteristics and style; but finding out their true values in life. 

Lee poses in every one of her photographs for this project, as if they are self portraits of the various identities she can become. It's not about her showing off and beautifully posing in every picture; it is to show her audience of her investigations if identity can be self-defined or classified by society?

She has investigations in many ethnic and social groups; drag queens, punks, swing dancers, senior citizens, Latinos, hip-hop musicians and fans, skateboarders, lesbians, young urban professionals, exotic dancers, tourists and Korean schoolgirls.

And this is her, Nikki S Lee...

I find her an inspirational photographer/artist. Underneath all her investigations, personally, I see a meaning of you can become any person who you want to be, if you just set your mind to it.

(extremely cliché, but it's true!)

(tumblr, cielvariablearchives.org , wiki/Nikki_S._Lee , tonkonow.com , vice.com )