Fruits in the Backwater

Pātaka Art+Museum

27 August 2017 – 22 January 2018

KERRY ANN LEE

Fruits in the Backwater is Kerry Ann Lee’s first solo exhibition at a major public art gallery in New Zealand. With a background in graphic arts, Kerry Ann Lee creates digitally collaged works that are both expressive and socially engaged, playfully investigating issues of identity and cultural hybridity. Drawing upon recent first-hand research conducted by Lee in Europe, South America, Asia and Aotearoa New Zealand, this new body of work explores the perspective she gained through the process of distancing herself from home, and the realisations she came to around the cultural and social benefits of our nation’s relative geographic isolation. Rather than returning home with a slew of international cultural references to infuse and fuel her art practice, Lee experienced a period of introspection while abroad, and has come back with a more objective perspective on ourselves as New Zealanders.

As source material for these works, Lee takes images from tourism and commercial advertising and places these externally-focused depictions of New Zealand and 'elsewhere' in conversation with more locally-specific social and cultural reference points. In essence the work is about perspective, decoding the globalized cultural symbols of this island nation portrayed in the media, to take stock of the cultural nuances and experiences that make New Zealand, New Zealand, and learning to value those differences.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Kerry Ann Lee is a Wellingtonian of third generation Chinese descent. Key works to date have explored the tensions of making a home in the margins, alternative histories and the legacy of Cantonese Chinese settlement in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2007, Lee was the recipient of the Asia New Zealand Emerging Researcher Award, and in 2008 she created Home Made, a national touring exhibition and seminar series that celebrated an alternative cultural history of Chinese settlement in New Zealand. In June 2009 Lee received a Fulbright Award to attend the Summer Residency Programme at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City, and in September 2009, she was an artist-in-residence at island6 Art Centre Shanghai through the WARE (Wellington Asia Residency Exchange) Programme, culminating in a solo exhibition, AM Park at AM Art Space Gallery, responding to Shanghai's 'future city' aspirations during the 2010 World Expo. Lee is also known for her work with self-published zines which have gained international exposure and readership over the past 15 years. Kerry Ann Lee has worked as a senior lecturer and researcher at Otago Polytechnic School of Design in Dunedin and currently lives in Wellington. Lee is represented by Bartley + Company Art in Wellington and Whitespace Contemporary Art in Auckland