ART BASEL PARIS 2025

Born in Uljin, Korea in 1930, Lee is recognized for her instrumental role in establishing fiber art as a legitimate and respected medium in her home country. After graduating from Seoul National University in 1955—a time when decorative textiles were limited to traditional embroidery and often dismissed as women’s domestic work—Lee broke from convention by embracing geometric abstraction and integrating craft methods with innovations in color, composition, and dimensionality. Her tapestries and other textile works from this early period featured simple shapes and patterns in bold colors, and she often played with scale through elongated, vertical compositions. Using weaving techniques like knotting, looping, and twisting yarn to add texture, Lee transformed her works into sculptural objects, challenging the boundaries of pictorial tapestry.

In the 1980s, Lee’s practice shifted towards more painterly effects, blending colored threads to evoke the interplay of light and shadow. These monumental, atmospheric works are inspired by the landscape of her hometown, surrounded by the sea and the mountains. By the mid-1990s and into the 2000s, Lee returned to geometric compositions, emphasizing linear forms and often dividing the picture plane into distinct sections. Metal rods wrapped in colored thread float above the surface of these works, introducing linear elements that frame and intersect with planes of color.

On view will be a selection of works spanning more than five decades of Lee’s practice, from early experimentations through to her late-career works from the early 2000s. Together, the works highlight the artist’s mastery of material, form, and color, charting new directions for fiber art with each stage of her creative development.

Lee’s influence extends beyond her artistic practice; she has held both teaching and leadership roles at Duksung Women’s University, served on committees for annual exhibitions and biennials in Korea, and mentored younger artists through her own exhibition space, Gallery Wooduk. In 2023, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea held a retrospective titled Threadscapes. This year, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in California opened Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread—the artist’s first survey exhibition in a North American museum—on view through February 1, 2026.