Ahn Lee (Oakland, CA) is a queer Cantonese artist, self-taught ceramicist, and researcher. Their interdisciplinary ceramics practice is a combined methodology of autobiographical re-making and archival research on the Cantonese diaspora. Ahn is a person of Sunwui (Xinhui) descent, one of the few counties in Southern China where most of the first wave of Chinese immigrants were from. Ahn explores their ancestral roots to this contested site of capitalism and imperialism through leveraging archival research and historiography, critical race and gender theory; with a focus on the Bay Area. Though trained as an academic researcher, Ahn aims to create with intuition, using critical history and personal narratives to imagine a current queer Cantonese futurity.
Previously, Ahn studied at UCLA as a Eugene V. Cota Robles Graduate Fellow. Ahn is a 2022 MFA graduate of the UC Berkeley Art Practice Department. They are the 2021 Jack K. and Gertrude Murphy Award Winner, a 2022 Watershed Ceramics Zenobia Fellow, and a 2022-23 Headlands Center for the Arts Graduate Fellow. In 2024, Ahn will be a resident at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and an artist in California Clay at Bedford Gallery. Ahn is a 2024 finalist for the SFMOMA SECA Award.
photo by Aidan Jung