Leelee Chan’s enigmatic sculptures weave together urban debris, ancient artifacts, natural materials, and industrial products into dynamic constellations where these objects move seamlessly between past, present, and future, traversing geological, cultural, and industrial timeframes. By bringing these disparate elements into dialogue, her sculptures explore materiality, temporality, and transformation, capturing the complexity of how materials are intertwined with human history, and challenging human-centric constructs of advancement and growth.
This inquiry is rooted in the shifting urban fabric of her immediate surroundings. Chan’s sculptures undergo an elaborate transformation through tactile experimentation with objects and processes. The artist pushes the boundaries of her objects’ physicality and expands the possibilities of abstraction. Her relic-like sculptures provoke a particular atmosphere and feeling that conjure the ambient poetry of the built environment.
Through this visceral exploration, Chan articulates a material intelligence and reflects on the complex journey of materials—their cultural origins, shifting symbolic meanings, and global movements. Her interplay of abstract forms, intricate details, unexpected objects, and movement ultimately calls for a physical experience. It encourages a new way of seeing and perceiving that resists binary thinking and nurtures ambiguity.
Chan (b. 1984, Hong Kong) received her MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, in 2009, and her BFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago, in 2006. In 2020, Chan was the recipient of the ninth BMW Art Journey. Her solo exhibitions include: Spiral Diaries, Klemm's, Berlin, (2025); Silica Meadows, Capsule Shanghai, Shanghai (2023); Antinomies, Klemm's, Berlin (2022); Pallet in Repose (Resurfacer), Discoveries, Art Basel Hong Kong (presented by Capsule Shanghai, 2021); and Core Sample, Capsule Shanghai, Shanghai (2019). Her duo exhibitions include Chrysalis Spectre, Matthew Brown Gallery, LA (2024); Strange Strangers, Para Site, Hong Kong (2023). Her selected group exhibitions include The Roots Know More, He Art Museum, Foshan, China (2025); Hovering, Capsule Venice, Venice, Italy (2024); Shanshui: Echoes and Signals, M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2024); When We Become Us², Capsule Venice, Venice, Italy (2024); An Atlas of the Difficult World, Macalline Center of Art, Beijing (2024); Joan Miró–The Poetry of Everyday life, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong (2023); Poetic Heritage, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021); Liquid Ground, Para Site, Hong Kong (2021); KölnSkulptur #10, Skulpturen Park Köln, Cologne (2020); How Do We Begin: X Museum Triennial 1st Edition, X Museum, Beijing (2020); Holy Mosses, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong (2019); Notes from Pallet Town, Ullens Center for Contemporary Arts Dunes, Beidaihe (2019); Hysteresis, Downs & Ross, New York (2019); Scaffolds of Meaning, Mine Project, Hong Kong (2019); Rehearsal, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2018). Chan's work can be found in the permanent collections of Long Museum, Shanghai; UBS Art Collection, Hong Kong; M+, Hong Kong; Skulpturen Park Köln, Cologne; J. P. Morgan Chase Art Collection, Hong Kong and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris/San Francisco. Her work has been featured in Frieze, Artforum, Mousse Magazine, Art Asia Pacific, the Financial Times, and Ocula, among others. She is currently in an artist residency at Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy.
