April 13-May 16

“The objects I create often refer to the form, decoration, color, and materials of historical ceramics, yet ask viewers to confront their contemporary context. These parallels can exist in my work through decorative motifs or traditional visual surfaces on forms of various origins.

My work investigates the process of recognition — how as individuals, we draw realities based on experiences and environment. I enjoy examining various cultural systems to question what is inherent and what is learned. ”

Steven Young Lee is the Resident Artist Director of the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. Lee is a Chicago native. He received his MFA in Ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2004. In 2004-5, he lectured and taught at numerous universities throughout China. While there, he created a new body of work as part of a one-year cultural and educational exchange fellowship in Jingdezhen, Jianxi Province. A former Bray resident, Steven also spent a year teaching at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C. in 2005-6.

In the United States, he has taught classes at Alfred University in New York, Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, the Clay Art Center in New York and the Lill Street Studio in Chicago. He has also managed a ceramics supply business in Chicago.
His work has been exhibited in China, Canada and throughout the United States, and is held in private collections in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Montana.

Lee maintains an active studio practice rooted in both functional and sculptural ceramics. His current work examines the process of recognition-how individuals draw realities based on experiences and environment. Through functional pottery and sculpture, he challenges pre-conceptions of style, form, symbolism, superstitions and identity.