Sculptor Yona Lee, who winds mazes of stainless steel to expose and challenge the connotations of everyday objects, is set to showcase new works at the Aotearoa Art Fair. The artist speaks to Madeleine Crutchley about learning to weld, the influence of classical music and evoking emotion through small mundanities.
The intimacy of your shower’s soap dish might not feel all that obvious until you see it attached to an all-exposing AT bus seat.
Yona Lee is the artist who creates this evocative scene. The sculptor and welder, who works in both Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and Seoul, South Korea, builds sturdy and tactile stainless steel structures that fuse together everyday objects from all contexts: domestic, commercial, corporate, public, indoor and outdoor. She’s interested in the way these somewhat mundane pieces bring their connotations into conflict.
“By blurring those like boundaries – the characterisation – it creates new meaning and I think it opens up,” says Yona.
Yona is among 150 artists who will showcase their work at the Aotearoa Art Fair, which opens on May 1 at Auckland’s Viaduct Event Centre. On the waterfront, galleries from across New Zealand and Australia come together to display works from emerging and established artists – Yona, with Fine Arts Sydney, will also be debuting new work crafted in her Tāmaki Makaurau studio.
She has long shown an interest in questioning connotations of everyday items. In 2013, her exhibition Tangential Structures at Enjoy Public Art Gallery featured swoops of thin steel rods displaying everyday objects, from mugs to kitchen utensils to clothing and sunglasses. The scene is chaotic, but it creates a commercial, shop-like feeling for these personal items (which feel overexposed compared to their usual domestic setting).
Her now-distinct method of winding steel tubing is best characterised by In Transit, first exhibited in 2016 and housed by non-profit art space LOOP in Seoul, South Korea. The installation involved stainless steel frames and a flow of royal blue fabric running across multiple floors, with sections sprouting to exhibit an array of everyday items from vastly different, sometimes opposing, contexts – the collection included mop heads, a postbox, bus “stop” buttons and splayed beach umbrellas.
The methods of construction that would become pivotal to Yona’s stainless steel progressed after a chance meeting. In her final year at art school, she was sharing a gallery space with another student, showcasing folded, soldered, galvanised sheets of steel (teachers and object-based artists P Mule and Peter Robinson were influential to her learning). She was minding the exhibition when her peer’s display drew a visitor to see the joint display.
“Her uncle ran like a doorknob company, and he came to see the show because of his niece,” says Yona.
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Advertise with NZME.Whether it was the trade association of Yona’s chosen materials or simply the conversation they struck up about the work, his interest was formative.
“He invited me to come to his workshop in Onehunga. It all started from there,” she says.
Since then, Yona has spent 10 years completing an informal apprenticeship at different local workshops. In each, she found quiet spaces to work alongside tradies, experimenting with her structures (though she would join them in their daily routines, smoko included). It was the ideal studio for an artist making functionality fantastical.
“Seeing such a perfect object for use in the world, and trying to make so-called sculpture next to them, it was almost the best space to test your work.
“I sort of learned techniques looking over their shoulders over the years and I built my knowledge through that.”
She has developed her welding skills – specifically TIG welding, which is commonly used to manipulate thin sections of metal – from a variety of skilled tradespeople she’s worked alongside and who have assisted in building installations. She specifically credits the knowledge of Diana Tran, a fine arts graduate who went on to train as a professional welder.
“She really taught me those key concepts, like the amount of heat, what colour it should be and the speed. After working with her, my welding got really great.”
Increasingly, Yona has taken hold of the tools. This proximity has expanded the range of possibilities for her work.
“If you know all the making yourself, a lot of ideas come from the making because you go through the whole process and understand what’s required to come to this outcome.”
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Advertise with NZME.The artist also has a background in music and has played the cello since childhood. After immigrating to Aotearoa New Zealand from Busan, South Korea when she was 11, Yona became more engrossed in the instrument and classical music.
“I got really into it when I was like 11 or 12. It’s strange, right? At that time, you would think you’d be listening to pop music or something like that.
“But now I think about it, it’s probably to do with when you move your culture and the language is different. In music, which is quite abstract, you can express yourself. You don’t have that limitation of language or culture because it’s such an abstract language.”
This melodic logic is still one Yona draws on. It influences her approach to a space, where she views the existing site as a composition, and then extends the form through her own voice.
“I think I try to read the space, whether that’s the regulations or the volume or the height or the materiality of it, how people naturally occupy the space and the nature of the space, as well as the construct, whether it’s a museum, commercial gallery space or domestic space. Then I kind of let the space dictate.”
She explains this musicality with reference to An Arrangement For Five Rooms, which was temporarily installed at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2022.
As the title suggests, the steel sculpture extended across a large portion of the building and Yona emphasised and challenged the architecture throughout. She crammed a small room with a maze that linked a bunk bed, hanging plants, fans and patio furniture. A bigger room was comparatively sparse; a single bath towel was draped over the railing. Another scene highlighted a window’s transparency with a structure that melted through the glass.
“When you read reviews on something, I think some of the really great compliments say something about parts of the composition coming alive. I think, if you do something right, it brings life to the piece of music, score, space.”
Yona believes that the emotional response to the pieces is different for everyone.
“I understand that these objects are very universal. They don’t necessarily, for me, carry personal meanings. I believe in everyone bringing their own memories or their relationships to these objects or the spaces they come from.”
The work Yona will be debuting at the Aotearoa Art Fair is smaller in scale – the steel circling in on itself until it’s punctuated with lamps or lights. One sees a dusky pink lampshade, in a velvety texture, bloom from the harsher silver texture.
Working on these sculptures, in contrast to the larger structures that respond to full-sized rooms, is exciting for Yona.
“I want the work to be comfortable with different scales without compromising its ideas.
“They talk to me quicker. In a larger work, I spend six months without knowing, but with these works I get a lot of feedback from the work itself and it’s really fun.”
After the fair, she’ll be looking to spend more time in South Korea, more time in transit. There, she’ll draw on a different context for her work, pulling it all apart and putting it back together again.
The Aotearoa Art Fair runs at the Viaduct Events Centre from May 1-4.
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