Tethered: Artist Talk with Aimee Lee

Exhibiting artist, Aimee Lee, will bring us through her journey to Korea in search of a connection to her heritage through art, culture, and paper-making, and how that road led to creating a home for hanji (Korean paper) in the US. She will also detail how hanji was used throughout history, from the mundane and everyday to enormous projects that remain national treasures to this day. Lee will also dive into her solo exhibition at BIMA, Tethered (part of Handwork 2026). There will be an audience Q&A and reception following her presentation.

Guest name:

Aimee Lee

Guest bio:

Aimee Lee is an internationally recognized artist, papermaker, writer, performer, and advocate for Korean papermaking practices. Her studio practice includes jiseung, joomchi, paper textile, botanical paper, natural dyeing, and hanji techniques. She is devoted to increasing capacity for papermaking worldwide, especially for hanji and East Asian methods, and to raising awareness of toolmaking in the field with her second book, As Good as Our Tools (The Legacy Press, 2025).

She is a trailblazer of Korean papermaking practices in North America, such as hanji, and she established the first hanji studio in North America during her initial Fulbright research. In addition during this research, she wrote the award-winning book Hanji Unfurled (The Legacy Press, 2012), the first English-language book devoted solely to hanji. Her Fulbright Senior Scholar research focused on bamboo screens for hanji-making in Korea.

Her artwork is collected in public and private collections across the world, including in the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum of Art Watson Library, Cleveland Museum of Art, Los Angeles Public Library, Bodleian Library, and Rijksmuseum Cuypers Library. In recognition of her contributions to Korean art, she has exhibited at the Korean Cultural Centers of the D.C. Korean Embassy, New York Korean Consulate, and Abu Dhabi Korean Embassy.

Lee is currently based east of Cleveland, Ohio, where, in addition to her robust studio and training the next generation of papermakers from the Korean diaspora, she is an inaugural Midwest Culture Bearer Awardee and an Ohio Arts Council Heritage Fellow. She continues to travel the world to teach, exhibit, and serve as a resident artist.

Guest website/social:

https://aimeelee.net