KE-SOOK LEE (Oh) is known for fiber installation and hand-embroidered drawing works exploring abstraction and domestic themes. She was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1941 and moved to the United States in 1964. Ke-Sook earned a BFA in Applied Art from Seoul National University 1963 and her second BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1982. She lives and works in Berkeley.

Ke-Sook has been represented by and exhibited at the George Billis Gallery in New York and Los Angeles, and Artlink Gallery in Seoul, Korea. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Arts and Design (NY), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PA), Riverside Museum of Art (LA), Spencer Museum of Art (KS), Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (KS), Philadelphia Art Alliance(PA), Trunk Gallery (Seoul), Park Eul Bok Embroidery Museum (Seoul), Ami Art Museum( Dangjin), and international exhibitions held in Berlin, London, Paris, Florence and Ireland.

Among public collections, her work is in the Spencer Museum of Art (KS), Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (KS), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PA), Nelson Atkins Museum of Art (MO), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul), Park Eul Bok Embroidery Museum (Seoul) and the Racine Museum of Art (WI).

Visit Ke-Sook’s website

Artist Statement

incorporating used household items

that handed out from older generations of women

my hands trembles when I work.

their worn skin on my hands

wrinkles of their faces, tear drop spots

sweat stains, burnt marks, torn parts, twisted nots,

breathing old airs

tangles thread crawling out

from

the unspoken spools

spreading wide and high

in a hidden room

hung by the ceiling, dances by the air

each dot awakened one by one