BONG MEE LEE
PAFA at a Glance
Master of Fine Arts - Painting - 2013 Bong Mee Lee studied painting and drawing as an undergraduate
W H AT W E
student at MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her interest in technique led her to PAFA for her Masters Degree, where she began reaching more for the paintbrush than the pencil and moved away from the black-and-white-focused work she’d been creating for years. As her work grew more conceptual at PAFA, it also grew increasingly more colorful. Thick applications of malleable latex house paint yield “paint sculptures” when she molds and manipulates them into various forms. She now channels the experience of each day—her city, her commute, her emotional state—through the process of mixing paint. By preserving the mixes in small jars, Lee creates personal paint sculptures akin to a calendar of days gone by.
Founded 1805 in Philadelphia, by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush, and other artists
“I needed to know the foundations before I could break the rules. All of my work is autobiographical. I respond to it and it responds to me.”
and business leaders, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is the Nation’s oldest continually operating school and museum of art. We are at the heart of a tight knit artist community in an urban campus setting. Our classes are small and students and faculty share and inform one another’s art.
PROG R A MS CERTIFIC ATE (CERT )
Bong Mee Lee in her studio
PAFA BFA CO ORDIN ATED BFA / UNIVERSIT Y OF PENNS Y LVA NIA P OS T-BACC AL AURE ATE (PB) M A S TER OF FINE ARTS (MFA) UNDERG R ADUATE M A J ORS PAINTING DR AWING PRINTM AKING
ACCREDITATION AND AWARDS PENNS Y LVANIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUC ATION NATIONAL A SSOCIATION OF SCHOOL S OF ART AND DESIG N
SCULPT URE
(NA S AD)
FINE A RTS
MIDDLE S TATES COMMISSION
SPECIALIZ ATIONS
FOR HIG HER EDUC ATION (MSCHE )
CONTEMP OR ARY RE AL ISM
MEMBER OF THE A SSOCIATION
FINE A RTS IL LUS TR ATION
OF INDEPENDENT COLLEG ES OF ART AND DESIG N ( AIC AD) NATIONAL MEDAL OF ART S , 2005 ( AWARDED BY PRESIDENT G EORG E W. BUSH)
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B o n g M e e L e e – M FA