Meet the Artists: Ahree Lee and Suknam Yun on Identity and Portraiture in Korean Culture

Meet artists Ahree Lee and Suknam Yun and hear about their experiences as women artists of Korean heritage. Yun’s painted portraits of notable women from history and a composite video portrait by Lee are now on view in the special exhibition Likeness and Legacy in Korean Portraiture. The artists share a cultural heritage but are from different generations and have divergent life experiences: Yun (Korean, b.1939) witnessed the turbulent history of modern Korea while Lee (American, b. Korea, 1971) grew up in Philadelphia during the 1970s and 1980s. Yun joins us virtually from her studio in Hwaseong, Korea, and Lee will be on-site at the museum. We invite you to join us either via YouTube or in the museum’s Samsung Hall for this exploration of identity and portraiture in Korean culture and contemporary art.  

On-site event is free with museum admission. Virtual access is free with registration.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS 

Suknam Yun, considered the pioneer of Korean feminist art, began depicting contemporary and historical women as a quest to recover her sense of personal identity after a decade of traditional domesticity. The exhibition includes Yun’s imagined portraits of notable women from the Joseon dynasty, who were never painted during their lifetimes.  

Ahree Lee draws on her Korean heritage and immigrant experience to explore individual and collective identity through video, photography, and interactive installations. Lee’s contribution to the exhibition is a video portrait generated by fragments of still photos that explores similarity and difference and references the snippets of genetic code that create the DNA of each of us.

Satisfy your appetite for culture on Thursday Nights at the Asian Art Museum: our special exhibitions, collection galleries, cafe, and boutique stay open until 8 p.m. and admission is just $10 after 5 p.m.