Conversation with Sandra Eula Lee

In Dialogue

Seeds in a wild garden, 2009, Rubble collected from construction sites in Seoul, South Korea, house paints in colors of local gardens

Sandra Lee is an artist who produces sculpture and 2-D works, which addresses her interest in labor, materials, and traditions that have been passed in through time and culture and defining those elements through a contemporary lens. Lee had a recent exhibition titled “The Walking Mountain” at Drexel University. I had the pleasure of speaking to Lee about her work, her influences, and what it means to be an American-Korean artist and daughter of immigrant parents. The Walking Mountain exhibition consists of works that signify some of these themes through their materiality and their making. Here is the discussion that transpired.

Tell me about your background. How did you arrive at being an artist? What were, if any, contributing factors to how you began making sculpture?

Well, I usually return to ‘making’ as a way of processing and understanding. When I was introduced to sculpture, space, and a hands-on collaborative studio, my eyes were opened in a new way. Working directly with materials and learning how objects are made helped me see the built environment more clearly. I noticed my surroundings and observed the politics of space more deeply. 

I think this led to my interest in the ethics of making, from industrial materials to the handmade. In each place I’ve lived, I usually learn about local making traditions or former manufacturing histories. I’m curious about the changing conditions and this layering; what traces are left behind and which stories are not visible? My family has a divided history between North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S., a trauma and loss caused by war. This may contribute to an urge I have to uncover and fill in the gaps, spaces unresolved. As a daughter of immigrants, I’m often trying to connect seemingly contradictory elements, trying to make sense of these experiences and sensations by creating new forms.

What interests you about the traditions of places you are drawn to and their relationship to “manufacturing histories”? Is it a case where tradition is eclipsed by industrial development, or are they in harmony with each other and evolve and change over time?

I began sensing varying speeds and rhythms while living between cultures over the years, urban and rural. Each place experiences their own speed of change, or lack thereof, and the process that unfolds is reflected in daily life. For example, battles for space and the building of temporary structures, demolition rubble left behind, and hand-made traditions that persist. I sometimes notice aspects in daily life that seem to convey different speeds and value systems. I’m looking to build a space where one might slow down and reflect.

Tell me about your show at Drexel University. Do you have any ideas for the exhibition’s layout? 

The Walking Mountain was informed by my interests in labor, migration, and material histories. Many of the works were created from research during my years living in NYC, Seoul, Beijing, and Xiamen. In the gallery, I centered Portable Pond, a large reflective floorwork. Here, I’m referencing East Asian gardens, which are designed with a central pond or lake that mirrors the view, a central space for contemplation. My pond is created from industrial materials and reflects surrounding artworks, people, and architectural elements, sometimes in reversed or surprising perspectives.

The Pearlstein Gallery is a beautiful industrial space with high ceilings that I found challenging but so much fun to work with—since several walls are moveable, with some that open to the street. I created four general areas– The Walking Mountain drawings at the entrance, before encountering Portable Pond. Then there’s a space I separated with construction mesh that highlights Ferment/Foment, which features plaster scaffolding with jars of red peppers in three different states and Seeds in a wild garden, comprising construction rubble painted in the colors of local gardens. I opened the walls to make the connection between the gallery and the street more porous. On those open walls, I installed photographs of street gardens punctuated by small cairn sculptures created from industrial and natural materials. Some of the ‘rocks’ are demolition rubble that was rounded by the ocean and washed up on the shore. 

In the exhibition, you show a series of 2-D works with a motif of piled rocks or stones. The materials vary from thread to ink. Below is a sculpture of shoes with compasses placed at each toe. Please elaborate on the choice of materials and the reasoning behind the pairing.   

Sure, the drawings include a selection of works on paper and fabric I’ve developed over the past ten years. They’re also collectively titled The Walking Mountain, which was inspired by a Japanese Buddhist sutra by Dōgen Zenji, which I began to consider more deeply in connection with matter and migration. The drawings were informed by the cairns I observed in the mountains of South Korea, a collective form of orientation, where one person comes along the path and places a stone, and then the next, and so on. They also echo the burial mounds built into the landscape. Meanwhile, in the streets, I see piles of brick and concrete blocks waiting for construction and giant piles of rubble from building demolition in urban and rural life. I think I’ve internalized these various states of deterioration and becoming. I’ve recreated this pile over the years through hand-stitching, watercolor, colored pencil, printmaking, and other hand-made processes, a kind of ritual for me. The Road Less Traveled includes a pair of shoes outfitted with large functioning boat compasses. I presented them within The Walking Mountain drawings at the gallery’s entrance, the first wall a visitor encounters.

The road less traveled, 2007, Boat compasses, shoes, house paint and enamel paint

In your piece focused on the Reflecting Pond published in Painters on Paintings, you wrote that you are the child of Korean immigrants. You returned to live and work in Seoul and Beijing as an adult. What was that experience like for you? Was there any connection or affinity to working and living in a place you may be connected to yet distant simultaneously? What was that like?

Yes, it’s hard to describe– I experienced deep connections, which also came hand-in-hand with conflicting and changing perspectives. I wanted to explore my family’s divided history, which led me to return and spend time in South Korea for research. I was an Asian Cultural Council fellow and participated in residencies with the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Goyang) and the Seoul Museum of Art (Nanji). One of the artworks I made at this time is Deep Waters (Pacific). To make this, I tore out the black and blue parts from newspaper images and created a large collage in the shape of the Pacific Ocean, the body of water that lies between the Koreas and the U.S. I wanted to focus on the water rather than the land, the dark, mysterious medium of migration and transport.

I participated in residencies outside South Korea, including in Xiamen and Mumbai, then began to work in Asia, eventually being Director for a Masters Preparation program in Beijing, a collaboration with the University of the Arts London. This period presented a years-long process of critical learning on so many levels that it’s difficult to describe! This also includes years living and working in rural America, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, with their unique making histories. Being immersed in historical narratives and contemporary contexts outside a Western canon helped me question my position and points of reference. Each has their own speed of development and their own understanding of materials and systems of production. It instilled a new kind of urgency to critically decode my surroundings, make sense of the built environment, and bridge through making. 

Deep waters (Pacific), 2011, 43 x 37”, Collage created from black and blue parts torn from newspaper images, newspapers from Seoul, wood

You created a work called Portable Pond for your current exhibition. You first exhibited this piece at The Phillips Museum of Art. This work seems central to both exhibitions. What is the importance and the utilitarian nature of the mobility? 

Starting with something deemed utilitarian, I like to create something that moves beyond its use-value, a new version of itself that speaks from a different value system. The pond responds in different contexts. For example, my first Portable Pond was exhibited in an exhibition in Xiamen, China titled Two waters. The show traveled to Seoul at Artspace Pool, one of the three original alternative spaces, formerly a traditional Korean house. Then, the show traveled to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which placed my industrial hacked garden against a botanical garden setting. Since then, I’ve created iterations in Lafayette, Louisiana, at the Hilliard Museum, which appears almost mirror-like and immaterial, and at The Border Project Space in Brooklyn soon after the pandemic broke. This was a piece reflecting the work of two Asian women artists in our three-person show. But the one you mention at The Phillips Museum of Art absorbs the light and appears black, almost like oil. Each Portable Pond can reflect a new and current state.

A room with a large pool of water

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Portable Pond, 2024 and Loop, 2018, Basket weaving reed, mechanical lights, button-down shirt, bamboo stake, spray paint, electrical cord

How do you imagine your research and work developing over time? 

I’m open to being surprised! What draws me in is the process of change. Materials are multifaceted, and I want to explore their ecologies while finding new ways to slow down and create moments to reflect.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

About the writer: Artist and educator Riad Miah was born in Trinidad and lives and works in New York City. He has exhibited in the Tri-state area and abroad. He has contributed to Two Coats of Paint, the Brooklyn Rail, Vasari 21, and Art Savvy.