Jimin Lee is a Korean-born, Oakland-based painter and print media artist. She graduated from Seoul National University with a BFA in painting (1990) and an MFA in printmaking (1992). As a recipient of a Japanese governmental scholarship, she studied printmaking at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music (1992-93). She also holds a second MFA in printmaking from San Francisco Art Institute (1997).
Lee draws motifs from mundane activities and everyday social interactions. Her work seeks to convey a sense of emotional and psychological intensity through reimagining these encounters symbolically. Combining digital printing, photomechanical processes and chine collé, she uses numerous plates in each of her etchings to produce uniquely complex images. Lee has an extensive background in print medium that include both traditional and contemporary and both Eastern and Western with an understanding of their histories.
Lee has had solo exhibitions at Anchor Graphics in Chicago; QCC Art Gallery at the City University of New York; Don Soker Contemporary Art in San Francisco; DoART Gallery/Hyundai Gallery in Seoul; Shirota Gallery in Tokyo; AndrewShire Gallery in Los Angeles; Megalo Gallery in Canberra, Australia; and Open Studio Gallery in Toronto, Canada. Notable group exhibitions include Crosscurrents: 8 American Contemporary Printmakers at Il Quadrato di Omega, Rome, Italy and Tradition & Innovation II at Museum Zallerein Halle 6, Essen, Germany.
Since 1995 Lee has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area and she is an associate professor of art and heads the print media program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.