In bloom

Liam Lee’s flourishing practice focuses on one-of-a-kind felt forms that meld together the natural and the domestic

- PEI-RU KEH

There is a sublime, otherworldly quality to Liam Lee’s organic works. The Brooklyn-based artist has shot to fame with the biophilic yet functional forms that he sculpts out of colour-saturated felt. Only five years into his practice, and at just 29 years old, the former set design assistant demonstrates a clarity and individuality well beyond his years. Working with fibres fabricated by a small wool mill in Ireland, Lee uses an intensive needle-felting process to create a variety of textile-based works. Initially producing large-format fabric panels featuring abstractions of microscopic and topographic forms, Lee soon moved into designing furniture pieces with dramatic surfaces that nod to familiar, biological forms.

‘Although I really enjoyed working in set design, I didn’t have my own creative outlet, so I started making textile pieces,’ he recalls. He chose felt as a medium simply out of convenience: ‘It’s more easily contained, compared to clay or woodworking, so I just found my way to it. Shortly after making my first textile pieces, I started selling them to the Noguchi Museum shop.’