'Blurred Self-Portrait' symbolically condenses my experience of becoming a housewife after moving to Poland, a role that initially felt unfamiliar. I stand wearing an apron, an image that has since become familiar, while my own presence remains somewhere within blurred boundaries. The painting reflects an identity yet to be defined. What comes clearly into view is the role itself, and I continue to wonder what other possibilities might exist beyond it. In this new and unfamiliar country, when I am not painting, I find myself defined solely by the role of a housewife. So I paint. This self-portrait is itself a question about who else I might be, and my way of continuing to ask.

Soyul Lee is a South Korean painter based in Wrocław, Poland. Living abroad has reshaped her understanding of solitude, transforming it into a space for quiet observation and reflection. Working primarily in oil, she explores time, memory, and the subtle transformations of everyday life through restrained compositions and symbolic imagery. Her paintings consider how our sense of familiarity and unfamiliarity shifts over time, shaping the ways we see ourselves, others, and the spaces around us. For Lee, painting is a way of making sense of what we have lived through and how it gradually becomes part of memory. She received her MFA in Fine Arts from the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław.