The Muse Gallery is pleased to present Thread Your Way Through, an exhibition of new drawings and installation by London-based artist Sun Ju Lee. This exhibition builds on Lee’s exploration of line and material, extending her practice into the field of textiles as a site for conceptual and material experimentation.
Lee’s practice often begins with shadows captured in photographs, ephemeral traces of situations within the places we inhabit. Interpreted across printmaking, drawing, glass, and textiles, these images become intermedial works that reconstruct and reimagine the familiar. In doing so, Lee invites viewers to reflect on their relationship with everyday environments and the memories embedded within them.
At the heart of this exhibition lies her current project Thread Drawing, in which the line — a recurring and defining element in her practice — is reimagined through thread, functioning both as a structural form and a performative gesture. Here, thread becomes a way of navigating: capturing overlooked details, mapping spaces, and opening new pathways of perception. Ephemeral impressions are transformed into layered textile compositions and a large-scale installation. Through knitting and hand stitching, spontaneous gestures are translated into material form, merging the immediacy of mark-making with the deliberate pace of textile processes.
Across residencies and research trips, Lee adapts her practice to specific contexts, incorporating new materials, techniques, and perspectives. Her recent residency at Buckinghamshire New University (2022–24) provided an intensive engagement with textile processes, enabling her to refine thread as a medium of drawing and to expand her investigations into layered surfaces, spatial narratives, and non-linear temporality. This approach ensures that her practice remains dynamic, responsive, and deeply rooted in place.
Thread Your Way Through positions textiles as a vital language within Lee’s intermedial practice, opening new dialogues between materiality and subject, surface and structure, and situation and place.
Sun Ju Lee (b.1978, Republic of Korea) holds a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Leeds, an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art, and both an MFA and BFA in Painting from Ewha Womans University, Seoul. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Kunstpalast (Düsseldorf), the National Glass Centre (Sunderland), Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art. She has participated in residencies at institutions including the National Glass Centre, Sirius Arts Centre (Ireland), and Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris). In 2019, Lee received the Jutta Cuny-Franz Talent Award for her Enfolded Surface series, now held in the permanent collections of the Glasmuseum Hentrich (Germany) and the National Glass Centre. Her research and practice have been supported by Arts Council England, Arts Council Korea, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, a-n Artist Bursaries, and the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture. Her current project, Thread Drawing, expands textile techniques through workshops and research trips, and is being developed with support from Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice grant.
www.sunjulee.com