Kerry Ann Lee

Kerry Ann Lee is a visual artist, designer, and scholar in design at Massey University College of Creative Arts, in Wellington, New Zealand.

Practice Kerry Ann Lee's art and design practice is rooted in her experience of being a New Zealander of Chinese descent, and frequently explores these cultural intersections. and Cantonese urban diaspora communities in New Zealand. Lee is also known for her independent publishing work, especially zines, including Help, My Snowman’s Burning, Celebretard and Permanent Vacation. Lee started Red Letter Distro in 2001, a mail order service for Aotearoa New Zealand and international zines. Her practice frequently employs collage. Lee's 2017 solo exhibition, Fruits in the Backwater at Pātaka Art + Museum explores notions of identity and place, with juxtaposition of Chinese and New Zealand cultural signifiers a central theme. In December 2018, her installation Return to Skyland opened within the Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality exhibition at Te Papa.

Lee holds a master's degree from Massey University, with a thesis on the settlement of Chinese in New Zealand, through which she "interrogates the transformation of Cantonese settlers into Chinese New Zealanders through illustration design".

Career Lee held a senior lecturer and researcher position at Otago Polytechnic School of Design

Lee has held artist-in-residence positions at island6 Art Centre, Shanghai (September 2009),

Life Lee is a third-generation Chinese New Zealander; her forebears arrived in Otago, New Zealand in the 1930s. She was born in Wellington, where her family has lived since the late 1940s; her parents ran the Gold Coin Cafe at 296 Willis Street from 1978 to 1986. The cafe was referenced in her installation The Unavailable Memory of Gold Coin Cafe, at Enjoy Gallery in 2013 and Pātaka Art + Museum in 2015.

Lee is a DJ under the alias Croque Madame. She is also known for her interest in punk music and work with self-published fanzines.

Awards

2014: RATA Award for Excellence in Teaching, Massey University, College of Creative Arts. 2012: Otago Polytechnic Inspiring Research Award. In Praise of Weird Wonders, Bartley + Company Art, Wellington, 2017 AM PARK, am art space, 6 Xiangshan Road, Shanghai, China, 7–20 July 2010 Home Made: Picturing Chinese Settlement in New Zealand, Toi Pōneke Gallery, Wellington, 31 July – 22 August 2008