Hyunmee Lee

Hyunmee Lee was born in Seoul, Korea, where she grew up practicing Western Modern art with experience in Eastern painting.

Lee is recognized for her contemporary paintings executed using her unique process of the “meditative gesture.”Influenced by her strong connection to Asian calligraphy and her upbringing in the Taoist, Buddhist and Confucianist traditions, the Korean-born artist draws from a rich artistic and philosophical heritage. Her style is a playful combination of expressionistic abstraction and minimalist conceptualism, which embraces and balances opposing energies (spontaneity and restraint, completion and process) and draws upon diverse cultural influences.

Lee received her BFA in painting from Hongik University, Seoul. She earned MA and MFA degrees from University of Sydney. After returning to South Korea from Sydney, she taught at Hongik University while exhibiting in shows in major art galleries and museums, including the Seoul Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kong Pyong Art Centers, the MANIF Seoul in the Seoul Art Center and the Sun-Kok Art Museum. In 1997, Lee emigrated to the United States, where she settled in Utah and began teaching painting at Utah Valley University, becoming a tenured professor. In 2009, she retired from teaching to focus on her art career. Lee currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Lee has conducted numerous solo exhibitions across three continents, including in Sydney and Seoul. She has been featured in major solo exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum, and her recent works have been exhibited in the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Gallery. In 2015, Lee was honored with the prestigious Fellowship for Visual Arts Excellence from the Utah Division of Arts and Museums.

EDUCATION

Master of Arts in Visual Arts (MFA), the University of Sydney, Sydney

Graduate Diploma in Visual Arts (MA), the University of Sydney, Sydney

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, Hong-Ik University, Seoul

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018 Epochal Dimensions, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2017 Intonation of Oneness, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2016  Monochromatic Explorations, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2016 Abstract Alchemy II, Weber Public Libraries, Roy

2015 Markedly Minimal, Phillips Gallery, Salt Lake City

2015 Abstract Alchemy, Cheryl Hazan Contemporary Art, New York City

2014 Still Winds, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2013 Beautiful Disaster, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2012 Silent Gesture, Tinney Contemporary, Nashville

2011 Native Mumbling: Sori Sori, Julie Nester Gallery, Park City

2011 Native Mumbling: da da ga ga, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2011 Native Mumbling: Ma Ba Sa, Cheryl Hazan Contemporary Art, New York City

2010 Native Mumbling: Ga Na Da Ra, Phillips Gallery, Salt Lake City

2009 Inland Crossing, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2009 Dimensional Poetics, Julie Nester Gallery, Park City

2008 Meditative Gesture, Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta

2008 Contact-Sensation: The Harmony of Opposites, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2008 Touch: Meditation Joins Gesture, Phillips Gallery, Salt Lake City

2007 Foreordained Gesture, Nüart Gallery, Santa Fe

2006 Intimacy without Restraint, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City

2006 Outside Sight, Phillips Gallery, Salt Lake City

2005 When Gesture Finds Its Power, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan

2002 Mountain Armatures, Woodbury Gallery, Orem

1997 Seeing Through the Self, Moin Gallery, Seoul

1997 Self Nature, Seoul Art Fair by Moin Gallery, Seoul Arts Centers, Seoul

1996 Intrinsic Space, Seoul Art Fair by Moin Gallery, Seoul Arts Centers, Seoul

1995 Unconsciousness & Gesture, Gallery Ihn, Seoul

1993 Objecthood-Intrinsic Space, Gallery Kangnam, Seoul

1992 The Spontaneity of Space Through the Silence, Gallery Icon, Seoul

1991  A Formative Art World of the Space-Phase, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

1991 The Dissolution of the Self, Holdsworth Galleries, Sydney

1990 First Face, Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019 Abstraction is not a Word, but I Use it, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City

2016 Arterial Echoes: Three Generations of Creative Mentoring, University of Missouri-Kansas City Gallery of Art, Kansas City

2015 Church vs State: Contemporary Collection Praxis, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Street Gallery, Salt Lake City

2010 Not Just Another Pretty Face, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City

2009 Of Silence and Shadow: Two Views, Pleasant Valley Library, Ogden (two-person exhibit)

1996 MANIF Seoul ’96-Flowers Younger!, Seoul Art Center, Seoul

1996 New Genius of Fine Arts, Sun-Kok Art Museum, Seoul

1996 ’96 The Korean Young Artist, Seoul Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seoul

1995 New Aspect Exhibition, Kong Pyong Art Centers, Seoul

1994 Asian Modern Art Exhibition, Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo

1994 New Prospect 1994, The Moran Open Art Museum, Namyangju City

1991 The 10th Korea Grand Exhibition, National Museum of Modern Art, Kwachon

1990 Discovered, Bonython-Meodemore Gallery, Adelide

1989 Six Women Artists, Bonython-Meodemore Gallery, Sydney