Karen Lee is a designer of objects and materials and is currently based in Detroit, MI. Her current body of work engages in objects that redefine their roles in the domestic landscape. Karen leverages both woodworking and vessel making processes to explore new and unexpected forms of empathetic systems. Because vessels serve as loaded social and cultural objects that typically act as an intermediary between people and space, what happens when their intended use is obscured or reconfigured? What sorts of new space or cultural realities are created from these formal investigations?
Karen holds a BFA in Textiles Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and MFA in 3D from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has exhibited work in Portland for the 2018 Portland Design Week, Detroit for 2019 Detroit Month of Design with Form & Seek, and New York City at the 2019 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF). Her work has been featured on Sight Unseen and Dezeen. Karen also has work in the permanent collection of the Cranbrook Museum of Art.
IG: @bodegadog