Sammy Lee

Based in London, Sammy Lee’s multifaceted art practice encompasses game worlds, time-based media, moving image, photography, sculpture and installation.

Her work focuses towards life as an entity coexisting within the vastness of nature, drawing inspiration from various knowledge systems: taoism, animism, shamanism, ecology and neuroscience, amongst others. These encompass both ancient and modern conceptions of consciousness, multiplicity, navigating uncertainty, and the entanglement of mind and matter. Her work seeks to transcend the notion of nature as distinct from culture and embraces a synthesis of human ingenuity.

In collaboration with musicians, performers, writers, developers and engineers, her works can be experienced across a range of digital and physical formats, from the screen, to live immersive experiences to architectural interventions. Her approach across all these sites is underpinned by a phenomenological understanding of light and its symbolic and political resonance throughout history. Diaphanous, hallucinatory and textural, her visual aesthetics seek to make tangible the unseen liminalities of technologically mediated worlds.

Her solo exhibitions and projects include Cornucopia, Stephanie Kim Gallery, New York, USA (2024); Mirror 1: The Sea, with Sarah Shin, SWAY, Barry, UK (2022); Aviary, Tate St Ives commission, UK (2021). Selected group exhibitions include: UNESCO Centre for Documentary Heritage, Cheongju, South Korea (2023); Jeju International Peace Centre, South Korea (2023); Madberry Farmhouse, Seoul, South Korea (2023); Science Gallery London, UK (2023); Myungwon Museum, Seoul, South Korea (2022); MUTEK Montreal, Canada (2021). With her former studio Universal Assembly Unit, she created media art installations at institutions and festivals such as Barbican Centre, Southbank Centre, London Design Festival, Roundhouse and Nuit Blanche Paris. She holds an architecture degree from the Architectural Association and a PgDip in sculpture from the Royal College of Art London. She is currently a member of Standard Deviation, a multidisciplinary collective exploring the coincidence of geometric, psychic and inhabited spaces.