Chunkook Lee

Biography

Chunkook Lee (b. 1995, Seoul, South Korea) is a sculptor whose practice moves fluidly between digital modeling and physical craft. He typically begins works in 3D software before translating those digital forms into the physical world, using polymer clay, aluminium, resin, and glass applied onto wooden panels. The results carry a distinctly hybrid quality: digitally conceived shapes rendered by hand with meticulous, almost obsessive material detail, producing forms that feel simultaneously organic and artificial. Lee integrates nature-based patterns and motifs with human anatomical structures, constructing symbolic imagery that sits between ornament and organism, at times evoking church architecture and medieval imagery filtered through a contemporary, game-inspired visual sensibility. At Art Dubai Special Edition 2026, presented by RARARES Gallery, Lee debuted a new series of sculptures developed specifically for the context alongside his acclaimed wooden panel works, continuing his inquiry into where digital creation ends and physical matter begins. His work has also been shown at Art Central Hong Kong 2026 and in exhibitions such as Handful of Dust, and he is represented by galleries including RARARES and Tache Gallery. Lee's practice is part of a broader movement of artists using traditional material craft to give tactile, physical form to imagery and structures first imagined inside digital modeling software.