Lee Mei-ling, Summer

San Francisco , USA

Summer Mei-Ling Lee was born and raised in San Francisco. A multi-disciplinary artist, she creates process-based works and performances, embracing risk-taking and collaboration. Through research and discovery, she sets the conditions for art to enter. Lee explores themes of absence and presence, the impermanence of cultural heritage and humanity’s relationship with “the unknowable”, as seen through her paintings depicting the expanse of the ocean horizon. Her diptych works on paper and mounted on wooden structures form a mirror image of the horizon, recalling the idea of “heaven and earth” in Chinese creation myths.

Lee’s work often includes projected visuals, with images shifting between layers of translucent sheets of paper; she utilises light to create different levels of visualisation. In the exhibition with Alisan Fine Arts-New York, her recent cyanotypes have a similar effect. Lee prints family photos onto layers of gauze so that the viewer sees various perspectives as they move around the work, the way memory and human history shift depending on time and place.

Evoking divinity more directly, her Annunciation series recalls Renaissance altarpieces, painted and gilded in gold leaf and depicting images of Lee’s son and grandmother alongside birds, another recurring motif in the artist’s work. According to the artist, “The gold leaf forms an enigmatic and luminous ground, a mysterious place for ancestors, descendants, and birds closest (to me) to emerge or withdraw…”. Seen through the lens of her family history, Lee’s work offers a nuanced and personal perspective on cultural heritage - evolving and shifting rather than fixed in time.

Recent exhibitions include Minnesota Street Project (San Francisco); Marqueyssac, France; Untitled Art Fair ‘Monuments’, Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, SCOPE Miami Beach (Art Basel), Berliner Liste, Italian Institute of Culture, San Francisco Arts Commission, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Southern Exposure (San Francisco), Woman-Made Gallery (Chicago, IL) and Fei Contemporary Art Center (Shanghai). Her work is in the permanent collection of He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, China.

Light, Space and Time at Alisan Fine Arts-New York in 2024 marks the gallery’s first time working with the artist.

BIOGRAPHY

1997 BA, Stanford University, California, USA

2011 MFA, San Francisco Art Institute, California, USA

Currently Lives in San Francisco, California, USA

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024

The Danger of Having a Soul, re:riddle, San Francisco, California, USA

2021

Unsettled., re.riddle gallery, San Francisco, California, USA

2014

Into the Nearness of Distance, Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco, California, USA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025

Still Streaming, Alisan Fine Arts x re:riddle , Minnesota Street Projects, San Francisco, California, USA

2024

Light, Space and Time, Alisan Fine Arts, New York, USA
Art, Action, Change: YBCA Creative Corps Initiative, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA
Art Market San Francisco/ SF Art Fair, Fort Mason, San Francisco, California, USA

2023

Hungry Ghost Festival, San Francisco, California, USA
The Infinite Cage, Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, California, USA
Flash! Edge on the Square/CMAC, San Francisco, California, USA

2022

The Infinite Cage, Opening performance for Kongkee Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, California, USA
Lantern Stories, Yu Wen public art installation, San Francisco, California, USA
Symbiocene, L’été des Serpents, Arles, France
In Honor of Our Belonging, Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, California, USA
Neon Was Never Brighter, Chinatown Media Arts Center, San Francisco, California, USA
Hope In All Things: Songs for Chinatown, Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, California, USA

2021

SFAI 150: A Spirit of Disruption, Anne Bremer Library, SFAI, San Francisco, CA

2020

The De Young Museum Open, FAMSF, San Francisco, California, USA
Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria
However Invisible, French Consulate, San Francisco, California, USA
Cash is King II, Moco Museum, Amsterdam

2019

Pour the Line, Abacus Row, San Francisco, California, USA
Cash is King II, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
The Body Electric, 41 Ross Alley, San Francisco, California, USA
Jardins de Marqueyssac, Dordogne, France

2018

re: home, For Freedom, Minnesota Street Projects, San Francisco, California, USA
Requiem:Doc Film Screening, Chinese American Museum of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Autotomy, Practice Space, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
The Stillness the Dancing: Alma Yoray, Chicago Arts District Fifth Floor, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Requiem doc film screening, KAM Isaiah Israel, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Xian Rui 10 years, Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco, California, USA
Liminal Space, CAAM Film Festival, San Francisco, California, USA
After Tomorrow, French Consulate, San Francisco, California, USA
A Current Affair Fashion Show, Craneway Pavilion, California, USA
Notating Beauty that Moves, Artistree, Hong Kong
Special Project: Monuments, Untitled Art Fair, San Francisco, California, USA

2017

SCOPE Miami, Miami, USA
Berliner Liste Art Fair, Berlin, Germany
Requiem: Welcome Home to un-Home, Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco, California, USA
Here is Where We Meet, Naivasha Studio & Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA
Liminal Space: Crossing. An Uncertain Ocean, Public Art Installation, Ross Alley, San Francisco, California, USA

2016

9th International Ink Art Biennale, Shenzhen, China
Eighth Climate, Art Basel Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong
Asian American Archives Salon, Hong Kong
Fragile, Italian Institute of Culture SF, San Francisco, California, USA
Bringing it Home: (Re)locating Cultural Legacy…, San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco, California, USA

2015

DAE, 71 Stevenson Street, San Francisco, California, USA
Everybody’s Ocean, Santa Cruz Museum of Art, Santa Cruz, California, USA
Auto-Poeisis with Man Yee Lam and Glenna Cole Allee, Reynolds Museum, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California, USA

2014

Double Vision, He Xiangning Museum, Shenzhen, China
Art and Philosophy, lecture at Video Bureau, Guangzhou, China
Bay Area Now 7, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA

2013

Happiness. Collaborative Performance with Christy Chan, Studio 110 Gallery, Sausalito, California, USA
Nothingness, Panel Discussion, Angar Mora Salon, San Rafael, California, USA

2012

Fei Contemporary Art Center, Video Project, Shanghai
Bamboo Curtain Studio, Video Collection, Taipei

2011

Proof, Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA
The New Wave, Kadist Foundation Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA
Vernissage, San Francisco Art Institute MFA Exhibition, Treasure Island, San Francisco, California, USA

2010

Beyond Audubon, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, USA

2009

Afterlife, Mills Building Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA
in[ ]between, Diego Rivera Gallery, SFAI, San Francisco, California, USA
9W9V, Garage Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA
Bird, Tangent Gallery, Sacramento, California, USA

2008

DeYoung Museum, San Francisco, California, USA
Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, USA
Alliance Française , San Francisco, California, USA

2007

AAWAA Exhibit, Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco, California, USA
Woodward’s Garden, San Francisco, California, USA
Melange D’Artistes, Alliance Française, San Francisco, California, USA

2006

Bay Area Annual, Juried by Karen Kienzle, Sanchez Art Center, California, USA
Chaises et Oiseaux: The Work of Meredith Tennent and Summer Lee, Alliance Française, San Francisco, California, USA

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China