The Profile of Jin Lee

She grew up dreaming of becoming a painter since a very young age. As she came to get a deeper understanding of the concept of three dimensional space, she fell in love with sculpting. She majored in ceramic Sculpture in Hong-Ik Fine Art University in Seoul Korea. After graduation in 1998, she started working as a studio artist for the Burning Issue Gallery in Whangarei, NZ. She found Oamaru limestone for the first time while working at this job in NZ. Since Jin’s essential creative motif is focused on nature, she has also adopted the ideas of Free Spirit, Beauty and the strength of humanity within Nature as key inspiring themes. Symbolic simplicity is the art form she idealizes and pursues.

In 1999, Jin held an Oamaru limestone sculpture exhibition in Christchurch, New Zealand; subsequently, the BPW (Business & Professionals Women’s Clubs Incorporated.) commissioned her to sculpt the Daphne Award for the business woman of the year after seeing her work at the show. The BPW found her pieces to be very symbolic of the values with which the modern business woman most identifies. From this point forward, she was determined to open her own Oamaru limestone sculpture studio to pursue her passion for sculpture of this beautiful material.

Later on, she also designed the pop-art style mini fish sculpture and supplied it to many galleries all over the country in 2000. The design “fish in pop-art style” became one of representative Kiwi designs due to the Koru shapes and has been reproduced several times by various Kiwi craftspeople.

Before opening the sculpture studio, she spent 8 years establishing various careers as a potter for a ceramic workshop, a guest lecturer for a few years in France, Germany and New Zealand as well as a commercial art content producer in Korea. She held a few painting exhibitions in Germany and Korea and also designed the the Khai mobile launching event space for the LG Corporation as well as successfully preparing several Japanese murals for a Japanese restaurant in Korea. When she opened her studio in 2007, she created the amazing Aotearoa sculpture which was over 3 meters long and weighed more than 2 tons. “Aotearoa,” which is the Maori name for New Zealand and literally means “The land of the long white cloud” is a key representative art piece for Jin. This piece and another art work called “Baram,” which together were seen as symbolic figures representing both New Zealand and Korea were publicly presented at the New Zealand Festival held April 2009 at COEX in Seoul, South Korea, and were separately displayed at two shows at the Grand Hyatt in Seoul.

Jin has been establishing her credibility by successfully completing many projects with the NZ government, various NZ embassies as well as completing many commissions for international corporations and organizations both inside and outside of Korea. As she is one of the very few Oamaru stone sculptors in Asia, she creates her works of art as centerpieces for spaces such as lounges, office and some space in international hotels, resorts and corporate buildings. She does not only sculpt her creations but also has done several collaborations to help in brand development as well as providing creative designs and ideas to a number of international corporations.