b. 1998, Johannesburg, South Africa

Lee’s practice is rooted in a respect for materials and the history they carry. For her works on paper, for example, Lee often makes the paper herself, pulping and panning a wide variety of fibres, from cotton and hemp to kozu. Lee is interested in how these fibres contain genealogical traces of their ancestors and how, accordingly, they can be used by the artist to explore her own ancestry. Born in Johannesburg, Lee’s mother and father hailed from Beijing and Taiwan, respectively, and the material cultures as well as spiritual philosophies have served as major inspirations. As means to grapple with her identity between these two tensioned states, her work had been in a flux of decolonial practices and the orient, practicing folk culture techniques to ease the agitation of diaspora within a post-apartheid society.

Notably, the material to which she returns most often is sumi ink. Sumi ink is made by mixing soot––specifically, that which was burnt in prayers––with animal hide to create an ink stick. This process has been used to make the ink used by calligraphers in China from as early as the Shang dynasty (11th century BC).This spiritual and historical weight lends meaning to Lee’s compositions, which are often ethereal and abstract. Lee calls it “physically drawing with meaning”as a means of respecting the tradition of calligraphic practice to ease her feelings related to diaspora, she draws from this practice with a respect and intuition, seen through her marks.

Lee analyses images she takes translating them to drawing, embossing, or etching.These renderings often resemble clouds. Clouds, says Lee, are an embodiment of Qi, the vital force that, according to Chinese cosmology, flows through all living things. Qi can also be translated as vapour, breath, or air–– reflecting the subtle but nevertheless dynamic movement of Lee’s compositions, a process she describes as “embodying your lived experience, which transitions through your body to your hand that depicts the world you represent or seek––that is creativity to me.”

EDUCATION

2017-2020 BA Fine Art (Hons), University of The Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
2023-2025 MFA Scenography, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London

EXHIBITIONS

2025 Mount Analogue, Group Show, Vela Projects, Cape Town
2024 𝘈 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦, Under Projects, Stockholm
2023 I hear you, w/Mankebe Seakgoe, BKHZ, Johannesburg
2023 Oh so quiet, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2023 Arthouse, FEDE x 200CENT, Barcelona
2023 FEDE, Ibiza
2023 Centre for the less good idea, Johannesburg
2023 Greener Bar Activation, Heineken and Formula E, Cape Town
2023 Entangled Intimacies, Group Show, Goethe Institute, Johannesburg
2023 Index, RMB x Latitudes Art Fair, Johannesburg
2023 Nirox, Johannesburg
2022 LIA, Leipzig
2022 If not now, then when?, Group Show, BKHZ, Johannesburg
2022 The Broken Umbrella, AVA, Cape Town
2022 The Broken Umbrella, KZNSA, Durban
2022 Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg
2022 FNB Art Fair, Johannesburg
2022 Latitudes, Johannesburg
2021 BMW GROUP, Johannesburg
2021 FNB Art Fair, Johannesburg
2021 Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg
2021 Tongues, The Gallery, Johannesburg
2021 Forms Gallery, Johannesburg
2021 SculptX, Johannesburg
2021 En(In)vision, Latitudes, Johannesburg
2021 Paper, Johannesburg
2021 Emergence, Johannesburg
2020 Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg
2020 纸, The Point of Order, Johannesburg
2020 New Work 2020, Graduation show, Johannesburg

RESIDENCIES

2022 LIA x Centre for the less good idea, Leipzig, Germany
2021 Bubblegum Club, Johannesburg

AWARDS

2023 Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Scholarship
2022 London School of Economics LEGACY ARTIST INSTALLATION COMPETITION Shortlist
2021 BMW GROUP ART PRIZE Commission
2021 Arts Threads x Gucci Global Design Graduate show
2020 Wits Young Artist Award Shortlist
2020 Anya Millman Scholarship
2020 Postgraduate Merit Award Scholarship
2020 Golden Key Honours Society

PRESS

Arthrob FNB Art Joburg: An Editor’s Diary

Goethe Institute Entangled Intimacies: art, more-than-human embodiment, and the climate catastrophe

BMW GROUP BMW Group Midrand Campus lends itself as a canvas for Wits School of Arts students. 纸(ZHI) by Tzung Hui Lauren Lee

DAVID KRUT African Leipzig

Connect Everything Collective Tzung-Hui Lauren Lee’s artistic and sartorial consciousness takes flight

University of The Witwatersrand Fine artists channel their creativity with BMW

Leipziger Volkszeitung Arrived: What artists from South Africa are planning in the Leipzig Spinnerei

LIA (Leipzig International Art Programme) Tzung-Hui Lauren Lee

TZUNG-HUI LAUREN LEE