Curatorial Statement
To view and purchase work from this exhibition, our gallery will be open by appointment starting Friday, August 7, 2020 from 11am-4pm MT, and Mondays through Saturdays, 10am-4pm August 8-29, 2020.
Exhibition Posted Online: Monday, August 10, 2020 by 10am MT
There will be NO pre-sales of artwork for this show. All artwork will be offered for sale in person at the gallery by appointment only starting at 11am Friday August 7th, and during gallery hours 10am-4pm Saturday August 8th. Work will then be available online, on the phone, or in the gallery (with an appointment) starting Monday, August 10th at 10am MT.
The work of Steven Y. Lee and Beth Lo are natural complements to each other. Both draw from life experiences, childhood memories, and their Asian heritage growing up in the United States with immigrant parents. This exhibition includes their individual work, as well as a collection of collaborative pieces that highlight Steve’s sensitivity to form and pattern combined with Beth’s emotive imagery and narrative.
Steven Young Lee has been the resident artist director of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana since 2006. In 2004-05, he lectured and taught at numerous universities throughout China as part of a one-year cultural and educational exchange in Jingdezhen, Shanghai and Beijing. In 2005-6 he was a visiting professor at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C.
Steve has lectured extensively in North America and Asia. In March 2013 he participated on a panel, “Americans in the Porcelain City,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 2013, he was one of several international artists invited to participate in “New Blue and White,” an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that featured contemporary artists working in the blue-and-white tradition of ceramic production. In the Fall of 2016 his work will be featured as part of the Renwick Invitational at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
He is represented by the Duane Reed Gallery, Ferrin Contemporary and The Archie Bray Foundation Gallery. His work has been collected by the Smithsonian Museum, the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, Korea, as well as many private collections.
Steve received his BFA and MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University. Originally from Chicago, he lives in Helena with his wife, Lisa and their son and daughter.
Beth Lo was born in Lafayette, Indiana, to parents who had recently emigrated from China. Much of Beth’s ceramic and mixed media artwork draws from themes of childhood, family, Asian culture and language. She received a Bachelor of General Studies from the University of Michigan in 1971, and then studied Ceramics with Rudy Autio at the University of Montana receiving her MFA in 1974. When Rudy retired in 1985, Beth assumed his job as Professor of Ceramics, and has been twice honored with the University of Montana Provost’s Distinguished Lecturer Award, 2006 and 2010.
Beth Lo has exhibited her work internationally. She was invited to make a new work for the Main Exhibition of the 7th Gyeonggi International Ceramics Biennale in Korea, 2013. She has received numerous honors including the $50,000 United States Artists Hoi Fellowship in 2009, a $20,000 National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship Grant in 1994, a Montana Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in 1989 and an American Craft Museum Design Award in 1986. Her figurative sculpture and pottery has been acquired by the Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art at Alfred University, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA, Microsoft Corporation, Cheney Cowles Museum of Art, the University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, WA, the Permanent Collection, Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, MT, and the Hallmark Card Corporation Ceramics Collection.
Beth and her sister, author Ginnie Lo, have collaborated on two children’s picture books, Auntie Yang’s Great Soybean Picnic (2012) and Mahjong All Day Long which won the 2005 Marion Vannett Ridgeway Award. She has also collaborated with her mother, Chinese brush painter, Kiahsuang Shen Lo. Beth is also active as a bass player and vocalist for several musical ensembles including The Big Sky Mudflaps and Salsa Loca. The Big Sky Mudflaps is a swing and jazz ensemble that has played on the NBC Today Show and the Kool Jazz Festival among other national venues.