Jina Lee

Drawing and making images are simply ways of engaging with the world — observing, responding, and imagining space. Having lived across different cultural contexts, my early curiosity about people, place, and cultural difference gradually developed into a formal course of study. This led me to pursue Fine Art and Printmaking, Art History at both BFA and MFA in Seoul. My journey later brought me to London, where I expanded my inquiry through research-based practice, completing an MRes and a PhD in practice-based research. Over nearly two decades in academia, I have taught, supervised, and developed projects that explore spatial perception, mapping, and relational ways of understanding environments and communities.

Now I’m back in studio, full time. My work focuses on how people inhabit shared environments, particularly the subtle relationships between urban dwellers and forms of city nature. Parks, transitional landscapes, and everyday communal spaces often become starting points. Rather than depicting singular narratives, I am interested in the layered coexistence of different presences — work and leisure, solitude and gathering, maintenance and growth — that unfold simultaneously within these spaces.

2008 Bachelor of Fine Art, Ewha Womans University, Seoul
2010 Master of Fine Art, Ewha Womans University, Seoul
2011 Master of Research, University of Arts London, London
2025 PhD in Art Practice, University of Arts London, London

Milbank Tower
Manchester Museum
Crypt Gallery

Artist residencies in various countries, such as South Korea, France, Portugal

Conference presentations and workshops in academias and well-known organisations such as Tate Modern