Suwon Lee

Suwon Lee (b. 1977, Caracas, Venezuela) is currently based in Madrid, Spain. Through photography and various media, she tracks her passage through this lifetime. In this sense, her work is an open-ended, existential, and ongoing process, determined by the events of her life. She uses her condition as a cross-cultural woman, daughter of Korean migrants born in Venezuela and then forced to migrate, to question notions of identity, time, territory, embodiment, exile, and affectivity. She is a hybrid, a being who questions herself and transforms constantly, adapting to each context, thus adding a new layer of being to her work with each opportunity.

Lee has exhibited individually in Caracas, Madrid, and in international group shows such as the Guangzhou Image Triennial curated by Gerardo Mosquera  (2021); Vincent Price Art Museum, California, USA (2018); Arizona State University Art Museum, USA (2017); Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, France (2013); Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2014); the 9th Bienal do Mercosul  (2013), and Biennial of the Americas 2013: Draft Urbanism. She has contributed to many other shows in the US, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Seoul, and Paris, among others.

Lee’s works are in the collections of MoMA in New York (USA), Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (USA), Cisternos Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in Miami (USA), Colección Banco Mercantil (Venezuela), Museu de Arte Brasileira da Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (Brazil), and in various private collections in Venezuela, Colombia, USA, Spain, Germany, Costa Rica, Argentina, and Puerto Rico.

Lee studied photography at the Speos Paris Photographic Institute in 2001–2002. In 2006, she took the PHotoEspaña Masterclass with German photographer Axel Hütte and subsequently travelled with him on several photography trips in Latin America, Europe, and Asia from 2006 through 2019. She also studied with Nelson Garrido in his experimental photography workshop in Caracas, Venezuela (2007).

In addition to her career as a visual artist, Lee co-founded and was co-director of the Venezuelan artist-run space Oficina #1 (www.oficina1.com) for more than ten years (2005–2015), helping to launch the careers of emerging artists from Venezuela.