Multiplying Common Threads (9 pics)

Sound Wave - Melted 78 rpm records on wooden armature

New York-based artist Jean Shin is best known for her labor-intensive, monumental installations that transform everyday objects into elegant expressions of identity and community.

Her inventory of scavenged and obsolete materials include broken umbrellas, discarded lottery tickets, and prescription pill bottles, all of which she accumulates in massive quantities. Shin then transmutes these finds through a meticulous process of deconstruction, alteration, and restoration. The resulting sculptures and installations consist of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of seemingly identical objects, each of which carries a multitude of potential meanings that inspire both personal and collective associations.

"The focus shifts constantly in my installations between individual and group identity, the single unit and the larger whole, the intimate and the excessive," says Shin. "My elaborate work-process mirrors these dualities, as objects of mass production and consumerism are transformed through intense handmade labor."

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Shin attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1999 and received a BFA and MS from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She lives and works in New York City.

Chemical Balance - Prescription bottles, mirror and epoxy

Chance City - $21,496 worth of discarded lottery tickets (no adhesive)

Glasscape - Wine bottles and silicone

Penumbra - Fabric (broken umbrellas) and thread

The artist, Jean Shin

Jean Shin's website