Rim Lee’s (Haerim Lee’s) artistic practice investigates space as an institutionalized demarcation of power. Through a minimalist approach to materiality, she examines the expressive possibilities of abstraction. The act of violent erasure, concealment and obstruction creates a subjective psychological space of history and memory. By revealing the architectural surface as index of violence, she questions architecture itself as physical representation of visible and invisible state power. She had a solo show at gallery noone (2017) and Kasia Kay Art Project (2012) in Chicago and Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art (2012) in S.Korea. She participated in group shows including The Body (2010) as a part of the Chicago Humanities Festival, Creature Comfort (2015), Compassion Show (2017) and To Listen. To Speak. To Act. (2017) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has also been awarded Downtown Gary Public Art Competition of Legacy Foundation.
She was a resident artist in ACRE (2022), Parlour and Ramp (2021), Ox-bow: Conversation in Practice (2021) fellowship resident artist, a Center Program Artist at the Hyde Park Art Center (2018), HATCH Projects Residency at Chicago Artists Coalition (2017-18), and Artists in Public Schools (2023-2025).
Committed to multicultural, participatory education, she is currently working as an adjunct faculty at Chicago State University and the City Colleges of Chicago. She works as a lead teaching artist at Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) satellite programs. She hosted various art workshops and seminars at Illinois State University and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
