Biography
Born in Busan, South Korea, Maia Ruth Lee arrived in New York City in 2011 after living between Kathmandu and Seoul. Deeply informed by questions surrounding the self in times of dispersion, mobility, and rootlessness, Lee's multidisciplinary practice spans photography, video, painting, and sculpture. Using translation as an apparatus, Lee transmutes her works between mediums, connecting themes of borders, community, and language, with embodiments of carriers, loss, and self-preservation through process and materials. Relocating to Salida, Colorado in 2020 influenced much of Lee's recent work—the expanded space of her new setting is evident in the shifted work. Unraveled in order to be opened, layers of the Bondage Baggage serve as grids, atlases, maps, and readers. The impressions and tracings make way for Lee’s tender navigation of the contours and accumulations of a life.
Language as a mechanism in its ability and failure to shape and give account to experiences, memories, and emotions has been a major thread in Lee’s work, as for those whose lives are precarious and unrooted—maps, atlases, and banners become a device that calls to mind their life of movement, and often, loss. Lee’s use of india ink, with its reference to calligraphy, points to a human compulsion for storytelling, mark making, and archiving. Rather than lingering in futility and loss, Lee’s work opens up a passage way, forging new lexicons that give form to lives of transience and their stories, beyond immediate and accepted forms of legibility and comprehension.
Maia Ruth Lee has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (CO), Francois Ghebaly Gallery (LA), and Jack Hanley Gallery (NY). Lee has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Aspen Art Museum (CO), 2019 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, Helena Anrather Gallery, CANADA gallery, Studio Museum 127, Salon 94, Overduin & Co. Gallery, and Roberts & Tilton Gallery. Lee attended Hongik University in Seoul, and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada. Lee was the recipient of the Gold Art Prize in 2021 and the Rema Hort Mann grant in 2017. Her work is held in the public collections at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Language as a mechanism in its ability and failure to shape and give account to experiences, memories, and emotions has been a major thread in Lee’s work, as for those whose lives are precarious and unrooted—maps, atlases, and banners become a device that calls to mind their life of movement, and often, loss. Lee’s use of india ink, with its reference to calligraphy, points to a human compulsion for storytelling, mark making, and archiving. Rather than lingering in futility and loss, Lee’s work opens up a passage way, forging new lexicons that give form to lives of transience and their stories, beyond immediate and accepted forms of legibility and comprehension.
Maia Ruth Lee has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (CO), Francois Ghebaly Gallery (LA), and Jack Hanley Gallery (NY). Lee has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Aspen Art Museum (CO), 2019 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, Helena Anrather Gallery, CANADA gallery, Studio Museum 127, Salon 94, Overduin & Co. Gallery, and Roberts & Tilton Gallery. Lee attended Hongik University in Seoul, and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada. Lee was the recipient of the Gold Art Prize in 2021 and the Rema Hort Mann grant in 2017. Her work is held in the public collections at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Works
Exhibitions
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Maia Ruth Lee: The Conveyor
Prospect.6 | Ford Motor Plant 2 Nov 2024 - 2 Feb 2025“Prospect.6: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home” is an exhibition presenting new works by 51 contemporary artists installed throughout New Orleans. Curated by The Susan Brennan Co-Artistic Directors...Learn More -
'REVOLT OF THE BODY'
Curated by Simon Wu 14 Dec 2023 - 3 Feb 2024Tina Kim Gallery is pleased to present ‘Revolt of the Body’ curated by Simon Wu, opening on Thursday, December 14th, 2023. Participating artists include Cole Lu, Dean Sameshima, Lotus L....Learn More -
Maia Ruth Lee
The skin of the earth is seamless 6 Apr - 6 May 2023Learn More
Video
News
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6 Standout Artists at Prospect New Orleans Triennial 2024
Artsy November 18, 2024A high school marching band approached New Orleans’s Tivoli Circle, blasting the Spice Girls hit “Say You’ll Be There.” Yes, it was Halloween morning, but...Learn More -
Tina Kim Illuminates the 6 Best of Basel in June
Whitewall June 14, 2024The illustrious Tina Kim founded her namesake gallery in 2001 in New York, and ever since then has been a guiding light in the international...Learn More -
Maia Ruth Lee's Vast Space
Family Style December 23, 2023Maia Ruth Lee’ s explosive paintings simultaneously recall grids and Rorschach tests. Her large “Bondage Baggage” sculptures sit on the ground behind her desk in...Learn More -
Artist Maia Ruth Lee on Finding Meaning in Rootlessness
The Amp May 30, 2023For artist Maia Ruth Lee, migration has been a constant since childhood. Born in Busan, South Korea, Lee’s first experience being uprooted happened when her...Learn More -
Drew Sayer's Five Favorite Works from Frieze New York Viewing Room 2023
Frieze May 15, 2023The Brooklyn Museum Curator of Photography selects works by Farah Al Qasimi, Maia Ruth Lee, David Goldblatt, Carlos Villa and Jack Whitten — MAIA RUTH...Learn More -
Maia Ruth Lee’s ambiguities in “The skin of the earth is seamless”
ArtAsiaPacific May 10, 2023For those who have spent time at an airport’s baggage reclaim in a South or Southeast Asian country, Maia Ruth Lee’s exhibition at Tina Kim...Learn More -
Now Representing: Maia Ruth Lee
May 3, 2023Tina Kim Gallery is pleased to announce its representation of Maia Ruth Lee (b. 1983). The Busan-born, Colorado-based artist will now be jointly represented by...Learn More -
Maia Ruth Lee Transforms the Materials of Migration
Hyperallergic May 2, 2023The artist draws inspiration from her own migration to consider both the confinement and freedom associated with a life in motion. — In The skin...Learn More -
A Tension in Paint Befitting Our Times
Hyperallergic April 19, 2023Shortly after I went to see the exhibition Maia Ruth Lee: The skin of the earth is seamless at Tina Kim Gallery (April 6–May 6,...Learn More -
Inside Maia Ruth Lee's Solo Exhibition at Tina Kim Gallery
Women's Wear Daily April 12, 2023The morning after the opening of her solo exhibition “The skin of the earth is seamless,” Maia Ruth Lee was back at Tina Kim Gallery...Learn More -
Maia Ruth Lee’s Artworks Pick Up Where Language Falls Short
Hyperallergic May 19, 2021In The Language of Grief, Lee’s canvases read like a fragmentary novel, building out the story of a year through mundane bits and extraordinary pieces....Learn More -
Maia Ruth Lee’s Artworks Pick Up Where Language Falls Short
Hyperallergic March 19, 2021by Kealey Boyd DENVER — Words promise clarity, commitment, and explanations, all of which are essential for a critic adrift in exhibitions on art in...Learn More -
Access to Tools: The Glyphs of Maia Ruth Lee
The Gradient February 7, 2020“Horoscopes have become a ‘code for feelings’ in our everyday lives, which I think is really interesting. I think about my steel glyphs that way...Learn More -
The Whitney Biennial Called. How Will They Answer?
The New York Times May 9, 2019by Siddhartha Mitter Eighty pieces of scrap metal lay on the floor of Maia Ruth Lee’s studio in Brooklyn. She had obtained them from the...Learn More
