Lee Seung Hee was born in 1958 in Cheongju, the capital of North Chungcheong province, South Korea. He trained in the Craft Design Department at Cheongju University, where he studied ceramics, fiber craft, dyeing, and tapestry. His remarkable ceramic works unite the beauty and charm of traditional Korean forms with the more conceptual concerns of contemporary art. As a master of ceramics technique, he creates much of his work in Jingdezhen, in southeastern China, where he established a studio in this historic center of Chinese porcelain production in 2008. Since then he has won international acclaim for his Porcelain Paintings and his Bamboo series. In the Porcelain Paintings, which subject Korean ceramic masterpieces of past Centuries. Lee ingeniously transforms the original three-dimensional objects into stylized, shallow-relief images on porcelain tiles. His subsequent Bamboo series involves the production of thousands of ceramic “bamboo joints” that, when joined together, evoke groves of graceful, freestanding bamboo trees. His most recent seriesthe Space of 8mm, and it's subsequent extensionthe Space of 8mm_ Like Paper, infuse unexpected hints of volume into renderings of folded and layered sheets of paper.
For the past 35 years of his artistic career, Lee has been at the revolutionary frontier in the contemporary ceramic art world. Lee has been consistently challenging the overall perspective on ceramic art, employing refined materials and leading to the innovation of contemporary ceramic paintings and installations from the traditional origins of porcelain art. Lee emphasizes motifs, materials, and colors that enable viewers to make a direct connection between his undeniably contemporary works and the rich heritage of Asian Ceramics. Lee's works accentuate the significance of soil and ground, featuring ceramics as his central motif and exploring themes of regeneration.
Lee Seung Hee was invited to numerous solo exhibitions including "Synchronicity" and "TAO: Between Dimensions" at Park Ryu Sook Gallery in Seoul, Korea; "Transfiguration" at Waterfall Gallery in NY, USA; "Object beyond Object" at Force Gallery in Beijing, China; "Path" at Wally Findlay Gallery in Palm Beach, FL; "CLAYZEN" at Korean Craft Museum in Cheongju, Korea, and many more. Lee's works have been exhibited internationally including "Rituals of Repetition: Portals to Eternity" at CAFA Museum, Beijing, China, "Who Will Give an Answer" at Cheongju Museum of Art in Korea; "Rethinking Craft" at SeMA Nam-Seoul Museum of Art in Seoul, Korea; "Reduction of Sense" at Ozasa Gallery in Kyoto, Japan; "Contemporary Korean Ceramics" at V&A Museum in London, UK; and "International Biennale of Vallauris 2016" in Vallauris, France, among many.
