Lee was born and raised in South Korea. He is an associate professor and head of the glass program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He has won a number of honors, including the Emerging Artist Award from the Glass Art Society, and several scholarships including the Saxe Award from the Pilchuck Glass School and the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass. His work was featured in New Glass Review 24 and 32 and has been exhibited and collected nationally and internationally, including the collection at Corning Museum of Glass.

Lee’s Segmentation Series is inspired by his fascination with cell division. He works with glass that has simultaneous transparency and opacity: two qualities that metaphorically represent the clarity and mysteries of biology. Similar to the way “cells start to segment and become a life,” the uniquely refined translucent laminated glass surface suggest the mysterious qualities of cells, and on a larger scale, the ambiguity of our temporal existence. As the viewer moves around Lee’s objects the play of light transforms the sculpture into startling new forms which play on our perceptions and our expectations. The deceptive simplicity and understated intricacy of Lee’s compositions represent the contradictory relationship between clarity and complexity found within life.