At the dynamic intersection of sculpture, installation, and boundless imagination, RedLine Resident Alumni Sammy Lee emerges as a luminary, weaving a narrative that is uniquely her own.

Stepping into the world of Lee’s artistic process—much of which is possessed by the concept of home, and how gender-divided labor impacts contemporary craft and art—means finding yourself immersed in an artistic odyssey that transcends the conventional boundaries of contemporary art.

In the following four-part video interview series, get a behind-the-scenes deep dive into Colorado artist Sammy Lee's artistic process, and the influences that have shaped her distinctive style.

As Denver-based art critic Kealey Boyd explores the history and contours of Lee's imagination, discover the stories embedded in each of Lee’s creations to understand how her identity, experiences, and inspirations have shaped the evolution of her preeminent artistic career.

About Sammy Lee

Sammy Lee is an artist based in Denver, Colorado. Lee was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to Southern California at the age of sixteen. She studied fine art and media art at UCLA and architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Among her many accomplishments is a performative collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma during the Bach project tour in 2018. Lee is a RedLine Resident Alumni, serves as an ambassador for Asian Art at Denver Art Museum, was recently selected as a Fulbright US Scholar, and operates a contemporary art project and residency space, called Collective SML | k in Santa Fe Art District, Denver. 

Lee's work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in collections at the Getty Research Institute, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Spencer Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, and the Spanish National Library in Madrid.

About Interviewer Kealey Boyd

Kealey Boyd is a writer and art critic based in Denver, Colorado. Her research interests include methodologies for interpreting painting and other visual forms as an integral element of political and cultural discourses.

She is a regular contributor to Hyperallergic, and her writing is featured in LA Times, The Art Newspaper, Art Papers, College Art Association (CAA Reviews), The Belladonna Comedy, Artillery Magazine and elsewhere. She is the art consultant to the national literary journal Copper Nickel.

She taught Journalism at University of Colorado-Boulder (2022) and Art History and Theory at Metropolitan State University of Denver (2011-2021). Kealey has also given guest lectures at the University of Denver, Clyfford Still Museum, Denver Art Museum, University of Northern Colorado, and K Contemporary.

Watch Interview with Resident Alumni Sammy Lee Part 1: Artist & Curator

Kealey Boyd: Hi, I'm Kealey Boyd. I'm a writer and art critic based in Denver. And this is Sammy Lee. And she's an artist based in Denver, Colorado. She was born and raised in Seoul, Korea and moved to Southern California at the age of 16 and became a fine arts and media art student at UCLA and an architecture student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and was a resident of RedLine Contemporary Art Center. In, what was it? Two thousand…

Sammy Lee: '16 through '18.

Kealey Boyd: 2016 through '18. She also had one of her many artworks was being part of Yo-Yo Ma's Bach project, which was a collaborative performative piece as well as being collected by the Asian Art Collection at the Denver Art Museum. She's an upcoming Fulbright US Scholar. She is collected by the Getty Institute as well.

So if we can, I would like to start by talking about your artwork. I always think about intimacy when I think of your artwork, these spaces like table settings, these kind of echoes of a table setting, baby's clothes, these really private spaces that are really, I think, gestures of love. 

These kind of topographies of our private spaces, but also really universal in many ways. And I was hoping you could talk about how you pick these subjects and how you walk that line between the personal and the universal.

Sammy Lee: Yeah, it's all coming from my, just who I am. My experience of becoming a mother. And also I'm very interested in labor, domestic labor, and other labors that define who you are. The different labors that you engage, thus you are a farmer or homemaker. Or so how you define who you are by what you do, what kind of labors that you do. 

So intimate labors are mostly what I do as a homemaker side of me, being a mom. And I was a stay at home mom for three years after my first child was born. And all those labors that I engaged, and all of a sudden, I guess it's what all women go through. All of a sudden you become a mom, and it is indeed a life-changing, altering experience. 

So I was trying to engage in those labor as meaningfully as I can, but then you're just so exhausted. And I was also fantasizing about becoming an artist at the same time.

So I think all this thing I was trying to struggles or personal, I was trying to struggle and solve it with my art project. So that labor and what kind of identity that it gave by engaging those labor, I actively use the labor as a part of the process of my art making.

Kealey Boyd: You go back and forth to Seoul often. And so I think it's tempting to always frame your work in this way that it's an immigrant's voice, so we're seeing work that's an expression of Korean diaspora. But I wonder if the constant dialogue with this city and this country, and if that complicates it for you.

Sammy Lee: Yeah, that's a very interesting point. For me, who I am as immigrant is something that happened when I came, when I left and came. And maybe two years ago during my solo exhibition, at the very entry of it, I did this one installation called “Infinite Reflection.”

So it's two mirrors, one is yellow and the other one is gold. And if you're standing in between those angled wall and mirrors, it infinitely bounce back your image to the other side. So I have one mirror saying "Seoul," it's a vinyl text says Seoul, and the other one say "here."

So I am standing in between space watching myself getting infinitely bounced back from both places. And what's interesting, wasn't something that I planned, but I was gazing myself and my own reflections. And while I'm looking at myself that myself, the image of my repeated image of myself are not really able to have the eye contact. So there is this state of kind of confusion.

Kealey Boyd: Yeah. Missing each other.

Sammy Lee: Yeah. And even the gaze you're not able to meet. So I found that was very interesting, and I'm a little sad when I think about it. But that in between space, it is kind of the meaning that you give to that space and existing in that space. I decided not to be sad, but to feel empowered by it. Because I think just having this one leg here and there and standing, kind of like a bridge, right? It could be a very good bridge and strong bridge, right? So I try to see it in a different manner.

So that project is definitely saying that when I return, even it's quite frequently, that do I really feel that I belong there? Probably not, right? So I am immigrant, and I don't feel like that compromise me being sense of being immigrant here.

Kealey Boyd: Is the reaction to your work in these two unique cultures informing that feeling of distance?

Sammy Lee: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think that is something that you're dealing with. One level, it's sadness, because many times you think that you should belong at a singular place. And also when I was studying architecture, we did a case study about Alzheimer facility and sense of home. They made the whole facility interior like a very residential purpose so that the patient, their condition, it will help them to feel a sense of home. And that's a very good thing for their Alzheimers. It will help them retain their memory, and it will do better, and they'll feel happier in that facility.

So I was thinking, "If I become older, what would help me for someone like me who doesn't really have this singular home or sense of home?"

But I do think that I have this connection to many fragments, although it may not be the singular place like childhood home. So I think there are many other materials or other inspiration, other sense of home, sense of place that I can draw. So I am actively just investigating and looking at those qualities to deal with it. And usually that comes out in art, in a project.

Kealey Boyd: I loved your 2019 show. Was it Counter Art? Yeah. Aesthetics of South Korean Protest. And so I was hoping you could talk about that. And I wondered, I was always a little curious if part of that show was inspired by the idea that RedLine really asked their residents to engage with the community, be of service and social justice, and to keep that in mind in their practice.

Sammy Lee: Yeah, definitely. So 2016 was a hard year for many people living in the US. And as a Korean American, that Korean American side of me was just so depressed about the politics and what we are living through. And the candlelight protest in South Korea, it happened from October, 2016 through March 2017 of March.

So it was completely citizen-led, peaceful protests, people committed every weekend together in a public square. And they were very technology driven and art driven.

Kealey Boyd: You mean it was about corruption, right?

Sammy Lee: Yeah. Yes. A scandal, corruption. And at the end, it actually made impact of impeachment and removal of that president and reelection. So it was something that you saw, what people gather during this creative protest can makes very tangible impact.

And I was very inspired, because a lot of artists did projects there. And also people have different personality, and I'm introverted person. And I always see more heroic people who gets the spotlight and are actively protesting in a more conventional understanding of protest.

But I saw many artists who were protesting, creating art in their studio and making exhibitions offsite. And those were very inspiring for me that those small voices, but they're still doing things, and it all comes together and makes an impacts together.

So I intentionally wanted to really bring all the different perspective, and even some of the artists who created work much later because it takes certain people much longer reaction time. So all those things, so protest was from '16 to '17, but the exhibition research started from that summer, and it took place in 2019 at RedLine.

And RedLine's just that huge exhibition space. I wanted to lay it out as a public square where all this protest happened. And using removable walls to create this alleyway. People coming into the square. And at the opening and whenever we had programming, just people gather in that space, in that square-like exhibition space, surrounded by all this powerful art was very special for me too. And I mean, Louise always says yes and encourage artists to do things, right?

So I was very just blessed to receive that kind of such support, because it was a big show bringing a lot of works from Korea. It was a really big-scale project and probably I've done it with that support. And also just being optimistic and underestimating type of personality too. But that was a big success in many ways.