Yona Lee
Yona Lee makes sculptures that combine structures of stainless steel tubing with everyday materials. Her work ranges in scale from tabletop objects to installations that occupy entire museum spaces, buildings and interior surfaces. No matter the size, her work shares a consistent language with the aesthetics and materiality of useful objects, urban infrastructure, public, commercial, and domestic spaces. Yona Lee’s work can be read in many ways: as minimal or maximal, as aggressive or playful, as authoritarian or utopian, as utilitarian or pointless, as site-specific or self-contained, as light touch or heavy duty, as sculpture or drawing, as serious or funny, as structure or system.
Born in Busan, South Korea, 1986. Lives and works between Sydney, Australia, Auckland, New Zealand and Seoul, South Korea.
University of Auckland Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, New Zealand, BFA (2009), MFA (2010).
Solo Exhibitions
2026
Fine Arts, Sydney, ‘Draught’, Sydney, Australia
2025
Fine Arts, Sydney, ‘Wall, Floor, Ceiling’, Sydney, Australia
2024 — 2025
Christchurch Art Gallery, ‘Fountain in Transit’, Christchurch, New Zealand
2024
Art Sonje Center, ‘An Arrangement for a Room in Seoul’, Seoul, South Korea
Fine Arts, Sydney, ‘In Transit’, Discoveries, Art Basel Hong Kong
2023
Fine Arts, Sydney, Australia
Gertrude Contemporary, ‘Wall, Floor and Ceiling’, Melbourne, Australia
The Physics Room, ‘Objects in Practice’, Christchurch, New Zealand
2022
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, ‘An Arrangement for 5 Rooms’, Auckland, New Zealand
2021
Fine Arts, Sydney, ‘Kit-set In-transit’, Sydney, Australia
2020
Fine Arts, Sydney, Australia
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand
2018 — 2019
Art Gallery of New South Wales, ‘In transit (double-function form)’, Sydney, Australia
City Gallery Wellington, ‘In transit’, Wellington, New Zealand
2018
SOMA Drawing Center, ‘Perdendosi’, Seoul, South Korea
2017
OCI Museum, ‘Monochrome on Display’, Seoul, South Korea
Te Tuhi, ‘In Transit (Arrival)’, Auckland, New Zealand
Bowerbank Ninow, ‘Turn of Phrase’, Auckland, New Zealand
2016
Alternative Space LOOP, ‘In Transit’, Seoul, South Korea
West Space, ‘Line on Display’, Melbourne, Australia
2015
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Rear Window, ‘Triptych’, Dunedin, New Zealand
2014
Blue Oyster, ‘Specific objects’, Dunedin, New Zealand
2013
Enjoy Public Art Gallery, ‘Tangential Structures’, Wellington, New Zealand
2012
Artspace, Mezzanine, ‘Line Works’, Auckland, New Zealand
Te Tuhi, ‘Composition’, Auckland, New Zealand
2011
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Open Window, ‘Constrained Organism’, New Plymouth, New Zealand
Group Exhibitions
2026
Space ISU, Seoul, South Korea
2025
Atelier Hermès, ‘The Second Life’, Seoul, South Korea
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre, ‘Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound’, New Plymouth, New Zealand
2024
Buxton Contemporary, ‘The Same Crowd Never Gathers Twice’, Melbourne, Australia
Openspace Bae, ‘Between the Lines’, Busan, South Korea
‘Sculpture on the Gulf’, Waiheke Island, New Zealand
2023
Art Sonje Center, ‘off-site’, Seoul, South Korea
2022
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, ‘On the Table’, Dunedin, New Zealand
Michael Lett, ‘Hosting Fine Arts, Sydney’, Auckland, New Zealand
2020
Busan Biennale, ‘Words at an Exhibition’, Busan, South Korea
2019
Fine Arts, Sydney, ‘Yona Lee, Phillip Lai, Hany Armanious’, Sydney, Australia
15th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, ‘Là où les eaux se mêlent’, Lyon, France
2018
Art Gallery of New South Wales, ‘Spacemakers and roomshakers’, Sydney, Australia
2016
Sungkok Museum, ‘Korea Tomorrow’, Seoul, South Korea
Changwon Sculpture Biennale, ‘We create things, things create us’, Changwon, South Korea
Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, ‘Smooth Gravity’, Seoul, South Korea
Seoul Museum of Art, SeMA Nanji Hall, ‘Meeting in two circles’, Seoul, South Korea
2014
Whangarei Art Museum, ‘From the Land of Morning Calm to the Land of The Long White Cloud: Korean Artists in Aotearoa’, Whangarei, New Zealand
2013
New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, ‘Young and Gifted’, Wellington, New Zealand
2010
Window, ‘Spring Trellis’, Auckland, New Zealand
George Fraser Gallery, ‘And and and’, Auckland, New Zealand
Residencies
2026
Artspace Studio Residency Program, Sydney, Australia
2021-2022
Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, The Netherlands
2020
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand
2016
SeMA Nanji, Seoul, South Korea
Geumcheon Art Space, Seoul, South Korea