HYE RIM LEE

ARTIST BIO & ARTIST STATEMENT

Hye Rim Lee is a Korean New Zealand artist currently working in Seoul, New York, and Auckland. As an intermedia artist, she works across digital, sculptural, and performance platforms. Through the creation and development of animated character TOKI, Lee discusses the changing roles of women, particularly Asian women, focusing on the rise of new technology and contemporary myth making, which in turn leads to a heightened interest in Western consumerism and beauty ideals.

Drawing on her transnational background, Hye Rim Lee’s three-dimensional animated videos and photographs explore the interplay between technology and female identity. Based in New York but has lived in South Korea and New Zealand, Lee brings a global perspective to her work. This outlook is evident in her manga-like figures with their lithe feminine bodies and skintight clothes; they possess exaggerated sexual features more characteristic of Western feminine ideals. These figures stand amidst glassy dragons and phallic forms in blank cyberspaces. The feminizing constraints of the figures’ bodies and the male signifiers reference the conditions of digital production, as Lee views digital media as a male-dominated field. Its creations are therefore subject to the male gaze and its attendant desires.

Hye Rim Lee was invited to have numerous solo exhibitions internationally including at "Elements", Boyd Dunlop Gallery in Napier, New Zealand; "Crystal City", Keumsan Gallery in Seoul, Korea; "Lucid Dream", Studio Italia in Auckland, New Zealand; "Lucid Dream", Berengo Akatsu Collection in Tokyo, Japan; "Crystal City", Venice Project in Venice, Italy; Galerie Volker Diehl in Berlin, Germany; and "GACMA in Malaga, Spain, among many. Lee was also invited to over 170 group exhibitions including "Restore(Pandemic 2020)", Waterfall Gallery in New York, USA; "Unbreakable, Women in Glass", Fondazione Berengo Art Center in Venice, Italy, and "ZAIN", Gimpo Art Village Art Centre in Gimpo, Korea, to name a few recent exhibitions. 

Hye Rim Lee's works were also showcased in 58 global art fairs since 2006 and Lee was invited to "Gallery Art Fair" in Seoul, Korea; "Art Hamptons" in New York, "Art Basel" in Miami, "Dallas Art Fair" in Texas in USA; "Sydney Contemporary" in Sydney, Australia; "Art Paris + Client" in Paris, France to name recent art fairs. In addition, Lee recently won the Asia Fund, Creative New Zealand, the finalist of 25th Annual Wallace Art Awards, PAH Homestead, TSB James Wallace Arts Centre, Art Grants, and Visiting Research Fellow of the faculty of Design and Creative Technology in AUT in Auckland, New Zealand. 

Hye Rim Lee's work has been collected to top museums, Seoul Museum of Art in Korea, Adam Art Gallery of Victoria University in New Zealand, The Wallace Arts Trust in New Zealand, Gallerie Volker Diehl in Berlin, Germany, and Hara Museum in Tokyo, Japan and more.