Ahn Lee Chinese-American
Ahn Lee (Oakland, CA) is a queer Cantonese artist, self-taught ceramicist, and researcher. Their interdisciplinary ceramics practice is a combined methodology of autobiographical re-making and archival research on the Cantonese diaspora. Lee is a person of Sunwui (Xinhui) descent, one of the few counties in Southern China where most of the first wave of Chinese immigrants were from. Lee explores their ancestral roots to this contested site of capitalism and imperialism through leveraging archival research in historiography, critical race, and gender theory with a focus on the Bay Area. Though trained as an academic researcher, they aim to create with intuition, using critical history and personal narratives to imagine a current queer Cantonese futurity.
Previously, Lee studied at UCLA as a Eugene V. Cota Robles Graduate Fellow. They are a 2022 MFA graduate of the UC Berkeley Art Practice Department. Lee is the 2021 Jack K. and Gertrude Murphy Award Winner, a 2022 Watershed Ceramics Zenobia Fellow, and a 2022-23 Headlands Center for the Arts Graduate Fellow. In 2024, Lee was a resident at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and an artist in California Clay at Bedford Gallery. Lee was a 2024 finalist for the SFMOMA SECA Award.
