Liam Lee’s flourishing practice melds the natural and the domestic

There is a sublime, otherworldly quality to Liam Lee’s organic works. The Brooklyn-based artist has shot to fame with the biophilic yet functional forms that he sculpts out of colour-saturated felt. Only five years into his practice, and at just 29 years old, the former set design assistant demonstrates a clarity and individuality well beyond his years. It's a sentiment clearly shared by many – Lee is one of 30 finalists shortlisted for this year's Loewe Foundation Craft Prize; all the finalists' work will be presented as an exhibition in Isamu Noguchi's Studio at the Noguchi Museum in New York from 17 May to 18 June 2023.

Liam Lee: ‘I wanted to make the domestic interior more of a dream world’

Working with fibres fabricated by a small wool mill in Ireland, Lee uses an intensive needle-felting process to create a variety of textile-based works. Initially producing large-format fabric panels featuring abstractions of microscopic and topographic forms, Lee soon moved into designing furniture pieces with dramatic surfaces that nod to familiar, biological forms.

‘Although I really enjoyed working in set design, I didn’t have my own creative outlet, so I started making textile pieces,’ he recalls. He chose felt as a medium simply out of convenience: ‘It’s more easily contained, compared to clay or woodworking, so I just found my way to it. Shortly after making my first textile pieces, I started selling them to the Noguchi Museum shop.’

Veteran New York gallerist Patrick Parrish saw the pieces on the Noguchi Museum’s Instagram and promptly messaged Lee. ‘I was blown away,’ Parrish recalls. ‘When I reached out for a possible commission, Liam said he had been making furniture, and sent me some photos. One look and I was booking a studio visit, and on that visit I offered him two solo shows: one at Fog Design + Art in San Francisco, where SFMOMA bought a piece for its permanent collection, and one at my gallery. I’ve been doing this a long time, and a talent like Liam’s is something you only see a handful of times.’

Lee’s furniture designs nod to biological forms, but on a larger scale. At their core, these pieces are rooted in ‘the ways we related to domestic interiors during the pandemic; porous spaces we couldn’t seal off completely from the outside world,’ says the artist. ‘I wanted to play with that notion of porosity and make the domestic interior more of a dream world, where you could experience everything happening outside while we were all trapped inside.’

The most recent additions to this body of work continue Lee’s exploration of ‘the relationship between architecture and the human body’, a recurring theme that stems from his early interests in architectural theory while an English literature student at the University of Chicago. The sculptures incorporate motifs ranging from moss-covered stones, branches and seed pods to macroscopic landscapes and star charts.

‘I think about collapsing scales,’ he elaborates. ‘I’ve also been trying to [evoke] the antiquated notion of spontaneous generation, where people didn’t know where things originated from. I aim to smooth out all the surfaces to a point where you can’t really tell how a piece was constructed. Even though the process is labour intensive, I want the pieces to feel like they’ve always existed or that they grew overnight.’

Colour plays a key role in bringing the pieces to life. Each colour combination is intuitively developed, with Lee mixing the shades and dip-dying the wool himself. The subtle colour gradients, which bestow the sculptures with a glowing, unreal quality, are created by applying separate layers of dyed wool. Majestic and slightly rough to the touch, Lee’s amalgams of colour, material and form engage the senses on a primal level.

‘Liam has always been intent on pushing himself to take craft into new territories,’ says Evan Scott, retail and merchandising manager of the Noguchi Museum. ‘The dyeing has become more complex, the forms bolder. He’s restless in testing how his vision can exist in more dimensions.’

In preparation for two upcoming solo shows, Lee is developing new work inspired by aquatic life. He is crocheting zinc-covered copper wire into mesh sculptures fitted over light fixtures and festooned with labradorite stones, garnets and pearls.

‘It’s a jumble of things, from coral and jellyfish to lampreys, an invasive species of fish in the Great Lakes. They are really creepy and look like the sandworms from Dune,’ Lee says. ‘For me, it’s all about creating a dream space and evoking some type of emotional response. I think if I had gone to an art school, I probably wouldn’t have gone in this direction or chosen to work with these materials in this way,’ he concludes. ‘But just throwing yourself into something is a good way to explore unusual ways of working.’ 

Lee’s solo shows run from 8 June–21 July 2023 at Patrick Parrish, New York, patrickparrish.com, and from 28 July–12 November at Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Maine, ogunquitmuseum.org

studioliamlee.com

A version of this article appears in the March 2023 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print from 9 February, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today