Artist Statement
When studying papermaking history, I noticed a gap when it came to Korean paper—hanji—and was compelled to explore it. During my fieldwork in Korea, I discovered far more than paper. With multiple teachers of intangible cultural heritage, I learned to make, fuse, texture, twine, weave, and dye hanji. In the mountains, I harvested paper mulberry trees and processed their long fibers. These strands became luminous paper with a history of becoming objects for survival, ritual, and pleasure. I create contemporary adaptations: a dress patched from collected scraps, a woven bird inspired by wedding gifts, or a commonplace book with multiple narrators, each revealing quiet stories from my ancestry.
The centuries-long lineage of art and hanji making continues through my hands, especially as I adapt hanji techniques to the plants and resources of the places I live. When I learned to make my own paper from rags and plants, I could orchestrate the nuances of my materials for books, costumes, and installations. I root my artwork with labor-intensive Korean techniques, linking them with American materials like milkweed fibers to create hybrid papers and art. These books, installations, garments, and sculptures share insights into a poet courtesan, the vital role of textiles in daily life, and bilingual family dynamics. Personal tales embedded in plant fibers breathe together, recording conversations manifested through paper, a two-thousand-year-old substrate that I make anew today.
Biography
Aimee Lee is a papermaking artist and culture bearer who advocates for Korean papermaking practices (BA, Oberlin College; MFA, Columbia College Chicago). Her initial Fulbright research helped her build the first hanji studio in North America and write her award-winning book, Hanji Unfurled (The Legacy Press, 2012).
She exhibits and is collected internationally; her work has shown at Allen Memorial Art Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Fuller Craft Museum, Islip Art Museum, Museum of Nebraska Art, and the Korean Cultural Centers of the Korean Embassy in D.C. and Abu Dhabi (UAE) and Korean Consulate in NYC. Collections that hold her art include Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Kent State University Museum, and the libraries of Brooklyn Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Stanford, UCLA, Yale, Harvard, Oxford, and Rijksmuseum.
She travels the world to teach and serves her regional community as an Ohio Arts Council Heritage Fellow, teaching papermaking and book arts at Oberlin College during their annual Winter Term. In 2022, North American Hand Papermakers designated her as their youngest to date Papermaking Champion in recognition of her tireless commitment to documenting and evolving Korean papermaking traditions, and in 2024 was named an inaugural Midwest Culture Bearer Awardee. Funders include the US Fulbright Program, Korea Fulbright Foundation, John Anson Kittredge Fund, American Folklore Society, Arts Midwest, Assembly for the Arts, Center for Craft, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Puffin Foundation, CERF+, and SPACES.
Her second Fulbright award as a senior scholar focused on further research of Korean papermaking tools, and continued her training since 2009 with various national and provincial Intangible Cultural Property Holders. This inspired her extensive research into toolmakers for European-style hand papermaking and her second book, As Good As Our Tools (The Legacy Press, 2025). She trains the next generation of papermakers in the Korean tradition from the Korean diaspora and beyond to develop and evolve the American branch of hanji.