Ailyn Lee is spotlighted in the New Voices series, which highlights emerging artists who showcase their art on ArtConnect.

South Korea-born, New York-based interdisciplinary artist Ailyn Lee works across sculpture, painting, and installation. Rooted in childhood memories of her grandmother’s antique shop in Busan, Lee’s work examines the human body and found objects as vessels of memory, longing, and desire. She transforms discarded furniture and other curious fragments into uncanny, dreamlike forms, often incorporating hand-sculpted stone clay and paintings layered with Korean hanji paper and nobang silk.

She received both her MFA in Fine Arts and BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Lee has exhibited her work at A.I.R. Gallery, the Wassaic Project, SVA Chelsea Gallery, HERE Arts Center, and the Busan International Art Fair, among others.

Curious to gain more insight into her artistic approach and perspective, we asked a few questions.

A source of inspiration in your work is your grandmother’s antique shop. Could you paint a picture of the store and the memories it holds for you?

The shop was a dim yet magical place filled with old furniture, my mother’s bronze sculptures, marionettes, and strange objects that seemed to whisper their own stories. There was always a faint scent of wood, metal, and dust. As a child, I would hide between tall cabinets and drawers, pretending I was inside another world. Sometimes I imagined the furniture and puppets coming to life after the shop closed, like characters in a secret play.

My grandmother treated each object as if it had a soul, and watching her shaped how I see the world: that memory and tenderness can transform something forgotten into something alive again. That shop became my first stage, my first studio, my sanctuary.

Many of your pieces incorporate found objects. Where do you typically find them, and what draws you to certain items over others?

I collect most of my found objects from places I happen to pass by flea markets, antique shops, the streets of New York, or sometimes even from friends who are moving out and leaving things behind. Each object carries traces of its previous life, scratches, dust, stains, and I’m drawn to those imperfections. I don’t look for things that are pristine or new; I look for those that already seem to have a story.

Often, I don’t choose the object, it feels more like the object chooses me. Something about its shape, scale, or even a small broken detail suddenly evokes a memory, emotion, or image. A furniture leg might remind me of a body part, a drawer might feel like a container for hidden feelings. When I bring these objects into my studio, I mark the date I adopted them, as if welcoming a new character into my world. Through sculpting, painting, or combining them with stone clay, I try to give them a new life.

“Each object carries traces of its previous life, scratches, dust, stains, and I’m drawn to those imperfections. I don’t look for things that are pristine or new; I look for those that already seem to have a story.”

Your practice explores the nexus between the body and objects. Could you elaborate on this overlap and how it shapes your sculptures and paintings?

I’ve always thought of both the body and objects as vessels. In a way, objects have their own bodies too. They get worn down, break, and survive over time, just like we do. That idea led me to naturally blur the line between the human body and the object in my practice.

When I combine found objects with body-like forms, I use stone clay, the kind that is used for making dolls. I found it fun to work with at first, and I’ve been using it ever since. In my sculptures, furniture parts or discarded objects start to feel almost alive. A chair leg becomes a limb, a cabinet becomes a torso, a lamp becomes a breathing organ. By mixing these materials with hand-sculpted clay parts, I create hybrid forms that feel both human and not human at the same time.

My paintings reflect the same stories and images that shape my sculptures and videos, but through line, color, and intuitive gestures. The female body and objects appear as mnemonic vessels. These paintings feel like the earliest version of the world I’m building, where the stories begin.

You’ve described your practice as intuitive, how does a piece usually take shape in your studio?

When I bring a new found object into my studio, I spend time simply observing it — turning it in my hands, feeling its surface, and noticing what kind of memory or image it evokes. I often begin with automatic drawings as a daily ritual, letting my hand move freely without intention as a way of observing myself. Other times, I start sculpting right away, allowing the material to guide me, almost like playing an exquisite corpse game.

As I assemble and rearrange objects, unexpected relationships begin to emerge. A wooden leg might suddenly fit perfectly with a fragment of clay, or a drawer might start to resemble a body. These moments of coincidence feel like a collaboration with the object itself. I follow that rhythm until the piece feels complete, as if it has found its own voice or presence.

For me, intuition is a form of listening, a way of tuning into the subconscious and letting the work unfold naturally.

In your ongoing ‘Memory Box Series’, boxes and drawers function as intimate stages. What is it about this format that captivates you?

I’ve always been drawn to boxes and drawers. They feel like little universes, intimate, sealed-off spaces where forgotten memories sleep. When I visit my parents in Korea and open an old drawer, I feel as if I am stepping through a portal. Inside are objects that once shaped my daily life, clues to who I was, and gentle reminders of how the past continues to shape who I am now.

The contents are always a bit tangled, mismatched, even dusty, yet somehow they share a mysterious harmony, like props waiting backstage, ready to come alive in a play I didn’t know I was part of. It wasn’t until much later that I learned my grandfather once ran a box factory when he was young. Suddenly, it made sense — the strange tenderness I felt toward old boxes, the way I struggled to throw them away. I realized that boxes, like bodies, hold things: memories, secrets, fragments of lives.

“I realized that boxes, like bodies, hold things: memories, secrets, fragments of lives.”

I think I’ve always been comforted by rectangular spaces, even as a child. When I first came to the United States at fifteen as an international student, I craved a space that belonged only to me. A room, a drawer, a box. Any enclosed place where my mind and body could rest, separate from everything outside. These spaces made me feel safe, as if the world could not spill into me unless I allowed it.

Maybe that is why I keep returning to them in my work. A box, a room, a drawer, a body. Each becomes a quiet container of time - familiar yet unknowable, ordinary yet full of longing.

Your work is often described as uncanny or dreamlike. How does this sense of playfulness emerge in your work?

I think that sense of the uncanny mixed with playfulness comes from my longtime love of theater, puppetry, and the quiet act of observing the subtle expressions people make. Growing up, I was captivated by Andersen’s fairy tales, Japanese animation, and stop-motion films where objects and creatures come to life in ways that feel strange, emotional, and slightly unsettling. I still collect Furby toys to this day. Their blinking eyes and awkward movements feel both charming and eerie, and that tension has always inspired me.

I have always been drawn to things that feel alive but are not fully human, things that exist in an in-between space, a little unsettling but also endearing. That is why I often treat found objects like performers. In my sculptures, they seem caught in the middle of a scene, as if they might start moving or speaking when no one is watching. The same feeling appears in my paintings, which often resemble stills from a dream or quiet scenes from a peculiar play.

For me, playfulness and eeriness coexist. The uncanny becomes more approachable when there is humor, tenderness, or a hint of childlike imagination. And the playful becomes more interesting when it carries a trace of mystery, when it feels just a little bit alive.

Next month, you have a solo show opening at Uncool Gallery, what’s being planned for the exhibition?

My upcoming solo exhibition, Once again my autumn lamp, at Uncool Gallery presents a body of work that weaves together sculpture, drawing, and film to explore memory, transformation, and the shifting relationship between the human body and everyday objects. The exhibition centers on my drawer series, where paintings on wood panels are framed like intimate stages or memory boxes, and sculptural works form uncanny, dreamlike figures that feel both human and inanimate, familiar yet strange.

The show also includes my short film, Good Shoes Take You to Good Places, which follows the logic of dreams rather than narrative realism. Inspired by The Red Shoes and my own subconscious imagery, the film traces a woman’s journey into the world of her sculptures and paintings, blurring the boundary between object, body, and imagination.

The exhibition title evokes the soft glow of autumn light, suggesting a return to something tender yet transformative. Through gestures of collecting, assembling, and storytelling, the work asks how objects hold memories, how the body becomes a vessel of emotion, and how imagination can turn the forgotten into something alive again.

See more of Ailyn Lee’s work

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New Voices highlights emerging artists who showcase their unique perspectives and innovative techniques on ArtConnect. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. If you would like to be featured in a personal interview on ArtConnect Magazine, read through the open call and apply here.