LEE Jiyong is an artist and educator based in Carbondale, Illinois. He has been a professor in the School of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University since 2005, where he leads the glass program. Born and raised in Seoul, he received his MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and taught there prior to his appointment at SIU. His teaching has extended internationally through lectures and workshops at leading institutions, including The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Crafts, Domaine de Boisbuchet, Canberra Glassworks, and Fire Station Artists’ Studios in Dublin.

From 2009 to 2015, he served as a board member of the Glass Art Society, contributing to the development of the international glass art community. He was selected as a finalist for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize in 2021, received the Bavarian State Prize at the International Trade Fair in Munich in 2017, and was awarded the Emerging Artist Award by the Glass Art Society.

His work has been featured in major publications including Glass Quarterly, American Craft, Neues Glas, New Glass Review, and American Art Collector. He has participated in international exhibitions such as Thoughts on Thickness (Milan), Translucency at the Tallinn Applied Art Triennial, the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize exhibition, and KOREA NOW at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. His works are held in major public and private collections, including the Barry Art Museum, The Corning Museum of Glass, Chanel, and Samsung.

His Segmentation series originates from an interest in cells, embryos, and seeds—forms and processes that mark the beginning of life. Through simplified forms and translucent surfaces, the works reveal complex internal structures, reflecting the artist’s imagined perspective on cellular science. Utilizing the inherent properties of transparency and translucency in glass, he metaphorically addresses both the limits of scientific progress and the ambiguity of the human future.

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