In part three of this four-part video interview series (watch Part 1 here, and Part 2 here), Denver-based art critic Kealey Boyd explores Colorado artist Sammy Lee’s current and future projects.
Lee shares what inspired her to found and operate a contemporary artist residency in Denver’s Santa Fe Art District, called Collective SML | k. She also dishes on the focus of her recent Fulbright US Scholarship, and how the project is informed by the research behind her arts career.
About Sammy Lee
Sammy Lee is an artist based in Denver, Colorado. Lee was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to Southern California at the age of sixteen. She studied fine art and media art at UCLA and architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
About Interviewer Kealey Boyd
Kealey Boyd is a writer and art critic based in Denver, Colorado. Her research interests include methodologies for interpreting painting and other visual forms as an integral element of political and cultural discourses.
Learn more about Kealey Boyd >
Watch Interview with Resident Alumni Sammy Lee Part 3: Future & Current Projects
Kealey Boyd: Can you tell us about the space we're in, and the residency that you have been running in this space?
Sammy Lee: So I think after RedLine, I needed a space, so I initially got this for just like I said, I got this space as a studio.
Then I was thinking. I think my perspective changed, and I was asking, "What needs are there in Denver?" And also as Asian American artist, I quickly realized that there isn't really any platform to showcase contemporary Asian art.
Because I was an active member of Art of Asia, and at the time [Art of Asia and] the Denver Art Museum were very focused on the art of the past. And also, it is true that a lot of Asian, American, [and] Asian Americanness is not really relevant to the current, but either tied to the past, or the future. That's how media tend to portray Asian-
Kealey Boyd: Interpreting it through the past.
Sammy Lee: Yeah, very futuristic, but there is very little connection as someone who's of the present time. So I wanted to really be able to bring contemporary Asian artists and Asian American artists, because [of how] different [being] Asian and Asian American is.
So as soon as I defined that need, that I could maybe use this small space to bring people here, and introduce them, and make them connected to RedLine, and other artists, Denver artists. Yeah, so that's how this space evolved into the residency.
And I bounce a lot of ideas with Louise too, and got a lot of encouragement, and I just jumped with that idea. And it's been already since 2017, fifth year. And I hosted over 25 people.
Kealey Boyd: Wow.
Sammy Lee: Yeah, and we did Beyond the Counter Art. During the COVID time, we did the inVISIBLE hyperVISIBLE exhibition also at RedLine and at the Dairy Center too, to really talk about that Asian American identity.
And that was really good because that was a difficult time for Asian American during the COVID time with the whole surge of anti-Asian sentiment, and crime surging, hate crime surging over 300%. So it was really nice to do something to talk about it, and just raise the community around the exhibition.
Kealey Boyd: You are heading off for a US Fulbright soon. Can you tell us more about that?
Sammy Lee: Yeah, so I was excited to find out that I was selected as a US scholar, and I'm going to research about gender labor, so get into labor and it's Confucianist philosophy, driven, divided labor, and how that gender-divided labor is impacting contemporary craft and art.
That is my research, and it is definitely related to my projects, all these different ongoing projects that I've been doing. And I want to research in depth, and hoping that would turn into more projects. And I'll take many cooking lessons!