Video interview with the Artist
Arteral BlogSelected Media
Yoke MagazineBorn in South Korea.
Lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
Hyun-Hee Lee is a Korean-Australian multi-disciplinary artist whose work traverses traditional Korean and Western art practices. She has a diverse practice comprising stitching, drawing, painting and installation with the aim to establish a spiritual and cultural connection with her country of birth. Hyun-Hee achieves this by recreating and re-contextualizing traditional religious rituals, cultural practices and customs in a contemporary context.
She is fascinated by the way memories are distorted, changed and coloured by time and the emotional responses triggered by those memories. Now living in Australia, the artist finds that the Korean script she uses in her work has gained special significance, and has become much more than a communication device, but it is the essential thread that connects her to her past. The artist blurs conventional distinctions between writing, painting and installation, and through use of line, scale and colour, she eloquently expresses the emotions revealed in the pages of her diaries and journals which she uses as her source material.
Hyun-Hee has a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from the National Art School. She was awarded the Bird Holcomb Foundation Honours Fine Art Scholarship in 2010. She also completed a Master of Fine Arts (Research) from the University of New South Wales Art and Design in 2015.
She has been awarded many residencies, Red Gate Residency in Beijing, China and the Onslow/Storrier La cite International des Arts Paris Residency from the National Art School.
Hyun-Hee was the winner of the John Coburn Emerging Artist Award, under the auspices of the Blake Prize in 2012 and a finalist in 2013 and received acquisition award in JADA 2014, 2018 and 2022. Her works have been selected for numerous National Art Awards and Prizes including HIDDEN Rookwood sculptures, Dobell Drawing Prize, Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Sunshine Coast Art Prize and KAAF Art Prize. In 2022 and 2023, she was selected for the City of Sydney Banner Gallery Design for the Sydney Lunar New Year Festival.
Hyun-Hee has exhibited internationally (South Korea, Paris, Beijing and USA) and has had many solo and group exhibitions. Also, her work is collected in private collections both in Australia and overseas.
Hyun-Hee Lee is represented by Artereal Gallery, Sydney and Kara’s Gallery, Seoul.
