Suzy Lee Explained

Lee Suzy
Birth Date: February 9, 1974
Birth Place:Seoul, South Korea
Occupation:Illustrator, author
Genre:Children's literature, picture books, artists’ books
Language:Korean
Notableworks:
  • Mirror, Wave, Shadow
  • Open This Little Book, Lines

Suzy Lee (Korean: 이수지; born February 9, 1974) is a Korean picture-book illustrator and author. She is critically acclaimed as an artist who explores the pleasures and tensions that lie between reality and fantasy. She is also known for her remarkable achievements in the field of wordless picture books, or silent books.[1] She gained global attention for her three works – Mirror (2003), Wave (2008), and Shadow (2010), known collectively as "The Border Trilogy" – using the center binding of the pages of a book as a means to create a narrative crossing the boundaries between reality and fantasy. Wave and Shadow were respectively named by The New York Times as Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2008 and 2010.[2] Wave was also awarded the gold medal for Original Art by the Society of Illustrators in 2008.[3] In 2016, Suzy Lee was shortlisted for the Hans Christian Andersen Award,[4] regarded as the Nobel Prize for children's literature, an award which she received in 2022. Lee has received a number of other prestigious awards from around the world including the FNLIJ[5] Award Luís Jardim for the Best Book without Text in 2008 and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children's Literature in 2013.

Biography

Lee was born and raised in Seoul. She received a Bachelor of Fine arts in Painting from Seoul National University in 1996. She started out her professional career as an illustrator, but she soon became fascinated with picture books upon encountering the world of artists’ books. She decided to pursue graduate studies, receiving her Master's in Book Arts from Camberwell College of Arts in London, England in 2001. The following year, she published her first book, Alice in Wonderland, which was also her final graduation project.[6] Since then, she has published over thirty books.[7] Lee organized projects such as the leader of the artist collective, Vacance Project,[8] and illustrating Dream of Becoming Water, a book interpretation of a song by the same title by Korean singer-songwriter Lucid Fall.[9]

Career

Suzy Lee made her debut as a picture-book artist with Alice in Wonderland, which was the final project for her master's program. She participated in the Bologna Children's Book Fair with a dummy of the book and pitched it to publishers, eventually signing a deal with the Italian publishing house Corraini Edizioni in 2002. La Revanche des Lapins, for which she was selected for the Illustrator's Exhibition at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in 2002, was published in Switzerland the following year and recognized as one of "The Most Beautiful Swiss Books."[10] Lee gained attention in the picture-book world for the publication of the series of three books, Mirror (2003), Wave (2008), and Shadow (2010), complemented by The Border Trilogy, a manual to the series sharing the details of her creative process and approach to picture-books. Beginning with her solo exhibition highlighting "The Border Trilogy" at the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMBo) in Italy,[11] [12] Suzy Lee has been engaging with readers and audiences across the world through exhibitions and book fairs held in countries including the United States, Swenden, Germany, Brazil, Spain, China, Singapore, Japan, India, Mexico, Italy, France and Korea. In 2013, she illustrated the official poster for the Library of Congress National Book Festival.[13] Later in the same year, she was honored with the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Open This Little Book.[14] In 2016, she was shortlisted for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in recognition of the literary and aesthetic innovation qualities of her works. She received the award in 2022.In 2019, she received the 60th Korean Publishing Culture Award[15] and selected for the IBBY Honour List for River,[16] a book inspired by a personal story of her dog.[17] She has founded Hintoki Press,[18] an independent publishing house, through which she has directly published experimental works such as Sim Cheong and The Magic Jar. She also leads the project group, Vacance.

Style

For Suzy Lee, the charm of picture-books lies in their power as a medium to convey the simplest truths in a simple yet refined manner. She uses a wide variety of materials from pen, pencil, charcoal, watercolor to acrylic, and different artistic practices including collage and print-making, depending on the book she is working on. She particularly enjoys using charcoal.[19] Suzy Lee's books often the relationship between fantasy and reality.[20]

Awards

Works

Collaborations with other authors

External links

Notes and References

  1. Lee. Sungyup. 2016. Suzy Lee's Adventures in Picture book Land. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. 54. 4. 17–21. 10.1353/bkb.2016.0103. 152013416.
  2. Web site: Best Illustrated Children's Books 2008 – The New York Times > Books > Slide Show > Slide 7 of 11. March 5, 2016. www.nytimes.com.
  3. Web site: The Society of Illustrators: 2008 Original Art Winners. March 5, 2016. www.societyillustrators.org.
  4. Web site: Shortlist for the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Awards. December 13, 2020. www.ibby.org.
  5. Web site: Fundação Nacional do Livro Infantil e Juvenil. December 14, 2020. fnlij.org.br.
  6. Web site: Alice in Wonderland.
  7. Web site: Suzy Lee Books:: about Suzy Lee. March 6, 2016. www.suzyleebooks.com.
  8. Web site: vacance project – Home. December 14, 2020. sites.google.com. en-US.
  9. Web site: Suzy Lee Books :: Bookworks :: water. December 14, 2020. www.suzyleebooks.com.
  10. Web site: Suzy Lee's Animal World – Rabbits, Black Bird and The Zoo. live. https://gatheringbooks.org/. April 18, 2011.
  11. Web site: "The Border Trilogy" EXHIBITION OPENING at MAMBO. live. http://www.suzyleebooks.com. March 12, 2012.
  12. Web site: "The Border Trilogy" EXHIBITION and Workshop". live. http://1995-2015.undo.net/. March 17, 2012.
  13. News: Cavna. Michael. September 19, 2013. National Book Festival 2013: Poster creator Suzy Lee wanted to reflect 'everything you can do with books'. The Washington Post. March 3, 2016.
  14. Web site: 2013 Boston Globe Horn Book Awards for Picture Book Honor. live. https://www.hbook.com. May 31, 2013.
  15. News: December 27, 2019. 2019 the 60th Korean Publishing Culture Awards. hankookilbo.
  16. Web site: IBBY Honour List 2020. IBBY.
  17. Web site: Suzy Lee Books :: Bookworks :: River, the Black Dog. December 14, 2020. www.suzyleebooks.com.
  18. Web site: Hintoki Press (@hintokipress) . December 14, 2020. www.instagram.com. en.
  19. Web site: Suzy Lee Books :: News & Miscellanies.
  20. News: Kwon. Mee-yoo. December 16, 2011. Suzy Lee explores beyond borders in books. The Korea Times.
  21. Web site: Ga-young . Park . 2022-03-22 . Korean illustrator Suzy Lee wins prestigious Andersen Award . 2022-03-28 . . en.
  22. Web site: Lee. Suzy. Open This Little Book: Illustrator Suzy Lee's 2013 BGHB Picture Book Honor Speech. live. https://www.hbook.com. December 13, 2013. The Horn Book.
  23. Web site: Lines. live. https://www.kirkusreviews.com. September 5, 2017. Kirkus Reviews.
  24. Book: Lee, Suzy. Shadow. 2010. San Francisco : Chronicle Books. Internet Archive. 978-0-8118-7280-5.
  25. Web site: Shadow. live. https://www.kirkusreviews.com. October 1, 2010. Kirkus Reviews.
  26. Book: Lee, Suzy. The Zoo. 2007. Kane/Miller. 978-19-336052-8-9. en.
  27. Web site: Mirror. live. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/. May 1, 2010. Kirkus Reviews.
  28. Book: Lee, Suzy. Alice in Wonderland. 2002. Corraini. 978-88-87942-27-9. en.
  29. Web site: My Books . 2022-04-28 . www.patzietlowmiller.com . en.
  30. Web site: The Yulu Linen. December 15, 2020. frankfurtrights.com.
  31. Web site: Dream of Becoming Water_Lucid Fall and Suzy Lee. https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211218/jMF5Z8VryH8 . 2021-12-18 . live. December 15, 2020. www.youtube.com.
  32. Web site: This Beautiful Day. live. https://www.kirkusreviews.com. August 1, 2017. Kirkus Reviews.
  33. Book: This Beautiful Day. December 15, 2020. August 2017. 9781481441391. en. Jackson. Richard. Simon and Schuster .

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