Ji Young Lee
Tributary #1, 2026
mixed media
19 ¾ x 24 ½ inches
$1,000
C-lective Curator’s Cut:
Ji celebrates the beauty of movement, connection, and continual renewal with Tribituary #1. Evident in its playful, squiggly composition, the work echoes the winding waterways that branch, converge, and sustain the landscapes around us. Layers of luminous color, playful linework, and fluid forms dance across the canvas like currents finding their way, inviting the eye to wander and discover something new with each glance. This work reminds us of Lee's belief that our lives, like rivers, are shaped by the paths we cross and the communities that carry us forward. Joyful, expressive, and endlessly unfolding, Tributary #1 is a reminder that life's richest moments are often found in the spaces where we connect.
Ji Young Lee
We Love Ji. She is a Seoul-born multidisciplinary artist and author based in San Francisco, CA. Her work explores transformation, memory, migration, and the relationship between the human body and the natural world through abstract painting, drawing, printmaking, and narrative storytelling, often focusing on her coming-of-age journey in South Korea. Through both abstraction and narrative, her work seeks to bridge personal memory, cultural heritage, and universal experiences of change and belonging.
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Bachelor of Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Trained at the Atelier School of Classical Realism in Oakland, CA
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Current Artist-in-Residence at ARTogether (2026–2027)
Studio Artist Resident at Root Division (2024–2026)
"Rather than imposing an image, I allow it to reveal itself over time. The process becomes an archaeology of light — an ongoing cycle of dissolution, negotiation, and transformation."
Ji has a daily ritual: entering the cold waters of the San Francisco Bay before dawn and emerging with the sunrise. That practice of dissolution and return has become the animating force of her work, translating the physical sensation of water into layered, luminous paintings that blur the boundaries between self and environment, body and landscape. Drawing on years of open water swimming and a deeply intuitive studio process, she approaches the canvas the way she moves through water — adding, erasing, and resurfacing.
Interviews in progress, please check back soon!