Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee (b. 1988, Seoul, South Korea; lives and works in Brooklyn, US) creates oil paintings that foreground the interplay of elemental forces, where aerial, aquatic, sylvan, lacustrine, and lithic motifs converge into speculative landscapes. Her works collapse distinctions between reality and imagination, twilight and daybreak, the atmospheric and the meteorological.
Working in deep, saturated tones of blue, green, and violet, Lee builds her compositions through layered washes and finely tuned palettes. Her imagery evokes forest clearings, celestial skies, and distant horizons, shaped by quiet reflection and poetic ambiguity. At the same time, the viscous and luminous materiality of her surfaces complicates any notion of these subjects as purely otherworldly or detached from human experience. Notably, her earliest landscapes were painted during the pandemic, their serenity and mystery emerging from a socially shaped and collectively shared moment. Rooted in her reflections on recent global shifts, Lee’s practice unsettles conventional distinctions between visual representation and elemental process, history and fiction, political ecology and landscape.
Recent solo exhibitions include Quiet Days at Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles (2025) and Two Skies at Albertz Benda, New York (2023). Lee received her BFA (2011) and MFA (2017) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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Endless Night, 2023 -
The Night Stars Fell, 2022
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FRIEZE Seoul 2025
Seoul, South Korea September 3 - 6, 2025Featuring works by Devon DeJardin and Sarah Lee. VIP and Press Preview: Wednesday, September 3: Invitation-only preview from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Public Hours:...Read more -
Dallas Art Fair 2023
Dallas April 20 - 23, 2023VIP PREVIEW: Thursday, April 20, PUBLIC DAYS: Friday, April 21, 11:00am - 7:00pm Saturday, April 22, 11:00am - 7:00pm Sunday, April 23, 11:00am - 5:00pmRead more
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In Her New York Studio, Artist Sarah Lee Paints at Night to Find the Dark, Rich Shades for Her Alluring Scenes of Nature
Katie Smith, Artnet, September 26, 2023 -
Contemporary Artists Are Tapping Into the Age-Old Allure of Nocturnal Scenes
Elizabeth Fazzare, Artsy, September 12, 2023 -
Enigmatic Wonder and Magic Envelop Sarah Lee’s Illuminated Landscapes
Grace Ebert, Colossal, September 8, 2023 -
Into the Blue
Whitewall
SARAH LEE
B.1988, Seoul, Korea
Currently lives and works in New York, NY
EDUCATION
2017 MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2011 BFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 Sarah Lee, albertz benda, New York, NY (forthcoming)
2024 Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA (forthcoming)
2023 Sarah Lee: Two Skies, albertz benda, New York, NY
2022 Tracing the Night, PMAM, London, UK
Complete Observer, Bill Brady Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2021 The Blue Hour, ATM Gallery, New York, NY
The Weight of Night, mbPROJECT, New York, NY
2017 Unoriginal Sublime, The Mission Project, Chicago, IL
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Eternal Reverie, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY
2022 To be a giant and keep quiet about it, Margot Samel,
New York, NY
Through a glass, Darkly, Carl Kostyal, Milan, IT
At the Table, The AAPI Awareness Charity Exhibition,
Christie's, New York, NY
If you forget my name, You will go astray, Anat Ebgi,
Los Angeles, CA
2021 Women in Paris, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, FR
2020 Home coming, AHL foundation, New York, NY
2019 Silent Night, Artnutri Gallery, Taichung City, TW
2017 Control & Contrast, The Mission Project, Chicago, IL
Presence Interrupted, Julius Caesar, Chicago, IL