APMA Cabinet, Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul

Traces is the second solo exhibition in Korea by the renowned British ceramic artist Jennifer Lee (born 1956, Aberdeenshire, Scotland). The exhibition is held at the APMA Cabinet (Amorepacific Museum of Art Cabinet), located on the first floor of the Amorepacific headquarters in Yongsan, Seoul. Lee lives and works in London, England.

A leading figure in contemporary ceramics, Jennifer Lee is internationally recognised for her hand-built pots, whose colour is created from within the clay body itself by mixing metallic oxides directly into the material. Her vessels often appear quiet and understated at first glance, yet they reveal subtle shifts of tone and finely balanced forms that emerge through a long, meticulous process of building, scraping, and firing.

Bringing together recent and new works, Traces focuses on the way time, place, and memory become embedded in Lee’s ceramics. The title refers to the faint lines, bands and gradations that run through her pots like geological strata, as well as to the traces of ancient and contemporary pottery traditions that inform her practice. Each piece carries the imprint of slow making: layers of coloured clay are gradually combined, compressed and transformed, resulting in forms that feel both timeless and firmly rooted in the present.

Lee studied ceramics and tapestry at Edinburgh College of Art from 1975 to 1979, before travelling to the United States on a scholarship to research prehistoric South-West Indian ceramics and contemporary West Coast pottery. She went on to complete her studies at the Royal College of Art in London (1980–1983). Extensive travels to countries including Egypt, India, Japan and Australia have further shaped her understanding of clay, surface and form.

Her work is represented in major museum collections worldwide, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 2018 she received the LOEWE Craft Prize at The Design Museum in London, and in 2021 she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to ceramics.

Within the intimate setting of the APMA Cabinet, Jennifer Lee’s vessels are presented in dialogue with the architecture of the Amorepacific building and the movement of visitors through the space. Traces offers an opportunity to experience the quiet intensity of her ceramics up close, and to follow the delicate lines of colour and form that chart her ongoing exploration of clay, time and transformation.