Kyu Sang Lee was born in Seoul, Korea and moved to Cape Town in 2005,
Sang Lee’s photographic artistic practice draws on his experience within distinct regions and cultures of the world and exhibits strong influences of Eastern, Western and African cultures.
Working in predominantly black and white photography, Sang Lee presents an interesting juxtaposition to ideas of the “lost” and are driven by the concept of time and fate. Interlocking these notions with photography, he focuses on constructing the realm of the metaphysical, the spiritual and the surreal.
Photography in South Africa indeed has been a violent one. People use images to influence and invade other minds. Posters and news, as images are works in a similar way. Just like heavy rain, one lives in a world with an overflow of information where one cannot always identify what is true. The more information flows, the more one forgets about oneself and eventually, one’s life becomes dominated by oblivion.
As an art student, Sang Lee was awarded the Simon Gerson Prize (2016) for his graduating body of work and was previously awarded the Cecil Skotnes Award for Most Promising Artist at Michaelis School of Fine Art, The University of Cape Town (2014). After graduating from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2016, Sang Lee won the Celeste Prize for Photography & Digital Graphics (2017). He has exhibited with Eclectica on numerous occasions and has exhibited both locally and internationally.
The series titled, The Sound Of Light-Sequence I-III by Kyu Sang Lee (made in collaboration with Martin Wilson) is featured in Zeitz MOCAA’s Afrofuturist exhibition, Still here tomorrow to high five you yesterday… (2019).