Ahryun Lee

Ceramics artist and designer Ahryun Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1989. She began her studies with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics at the Seoul National University in South Korea, graduating in 2011, before moving to London where she attained her Master of Arts in Ceramics and Glass from the Royal College of Art in 2016. Lee interned as Assistant Curator at the 6th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale in South Korea in 2011 and continued gaining professional experience during her studies in London, teaching in the ceramics department at Central Saint Martins in 2016 as well as collaborating with the fabric development department at CÉLINE, London. In 2017, Lee was an artist in residence at the Künstlerhaus in Neumünster, Germany.

Lee’s ceramics push the boundaries of the medium, exploring vibrant colors and glazes as well as unusual and highly skilled forms and textures. Her approach is conceptual and experimental, as illustrated by the Imaginary Drinks: Memory of the Taste (2016) series, which uses intensely detailed color and shape abstractions to capture the artist’s memories of childhood experiences of taste. Lee’s practice meanders between art, craft, and design and thus, perhaps unsurprisingly, her ceramics have been shown in art galleries and museums as well as in design contexts, such as the London Design Festival in 2016, Milan Design Week in 2017, and numerous exhibitions with Swing Design Gallery. Her work was purchased by KODE contemporary art museum in Bergen, Norway in 2017, as well as the collection in Künstlerhaus Stadttöpferei Neumünster in Germany. Additionally, Lee has collaborated on presentations with Zetter Hotel in London and Airbnb during the Salone del Mobile in Milan, amongst others. She is currently based near Munich in southern Germany.