Sookyi Lee, Emily No. 2, pastel pencil, 20 x 16.
Sookyi Lee’s longtime passion has been portraiture and the figure, and over the past few years, she has sharpened her focus even further with an emphasis on female subjects. Completed in pastel pencil, Lee’s winning entry depicts a model she photographed while teaching a workshop at the Scottsdale Artists’ School. “I kept thinking about drawing Emily after I came home,” notes the artist, “but it took me some time to do so. Each reference has its moment when I get inspired and work from it.”
Lee, who divides her time between the United States and Singapore, earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Hongik University in Korea and her master’s degree from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA. Her work has garnered First Place honors in the Portrait Society of America’s international portrait competition twice in recent years. Like EMILY NO. 2, those award-winning pieces reveal Lee’s interest in portraying people in profile and from other angles where their gaze doesn’t directly meet her own. “I often prefer the calm feelings of side views to the radiation of [an] intense look,” she explains. The artist also prefers working with dry mediums, including charcoal and Conté sticks, especially in earth tones.
Lee’s drawing style itself, with its feathery textures and fluid strokes, leads some people to presume she adds water to her media. “I believe this is because I stack the shapes, layer by layer, with numerous fine lines repeatedly being drawn and erased,” she says. “Rather than captivating people with glaring and intense feelings, I think my drawings tend to radiate their own subtle light,” adds Lee, “like nice vintage pieces of furniture.”
Find the artist’s work at www.sookyilee.com.
This story appeared in the December 2020/January 2021 issue of Southwest Art magazine.