Sammy Lee
Denver, Colorado

Sammy Seung-min Lee is a book artist based in Denver, Colorado. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she received training in fine art and media design from the University of California, Los Angeles, and went on to earn her Master's Degree in architecture from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. After developing an interest in book arts, she studied bookbinding under the tutelage of master bookbinder Daniel Kelm in Easthampton, Massachusetts before establishing her own practice, Studio SML | k. Her work investigates and experiments with spatial, narrative, and sequential qualities of the medium.

Website: studiosmlk.com

Fe-O, 2011

Fe-O is a book created in collaboration with Seoul-based artist JongKu Kim. Kim is internationally known for his horizontal landscape art works created with iron filings that he reduced from a solid form. While milling a 650-pound steel rod to a delicate black powder may appear to be an act of dematerialization, the elements oxygen and iron are, in fact, actively bonding, producing iron oxide. Named after the scientific abbreviation of this compound, Fe-O embodies these intangible chemical and spiritual reactions with narratives incurred during the filing process.

Dimensions: 10 x 10 x 10 inches, 25.5 x 25.5 x 25.5 centimeters

Binders board, steel powder, archival pigment prints, silk, magnets, acrylic panels and tube.