For Galleries & Collectors

Two exhibitions ready to show, and wall sculptures made for your space.

Ready to Show

Two bodies of work are ready to travel as complete exhibitions. Both have been shown before and can be installed with little preparation.

Moving Silence

Metal is where I started. I trained as a metalsmith in two very different traditions, first in Seoul and then in Rochester, New York. Moving Silence goes back to that beginning. The wall pieces start as my own figure drawings. I translate each one into copper and sterling silver sheet, shaping it with a hammer and joining the parts with silver solder. Each finished form is framed over the drawing it came from, so you can see where it began.

The freestanding pieces start as flat copper. I cut the sheet, then heat, hammer, and weld it, again and again, until the form rises into three dimensions. Then comes the slow part. Following the traditional Eastern way of hammering, which aims for a nearly flawless surface, I planish the copper with countless light blows until the hammer marks almost disappear and the metal turns smooth.

Works: 23 framed wall pieces in hammered copper and sterling silver, joined with silver solder, each mounted over its original figure drawing in a 12 x 14 x 3 inch shadow box. 5 freestanding sculptures in welded and planished copper.
Installation: The shadow boxes hang on small nails or hooks. The sculptures are shown on pedestals.
Shown: NEN Gallery, Charlotte, 2024. Gorelick Gallery, Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte, 2026.

Eggcellent SculpTOON

For 100 days, I made one egg sculpture every night. After my kids were asleep, I'd sit in the quiet studio with 200 grams of clay in my hands and let the day take shape. There were no sketches and no plan. Each egg holds a piece of that day: something one of my children said, something I learned, a thought I didn't want to lose. Some are funny, some are tender, and a lot of them are both. Together they read like a diary kept in clay.

Every egg has its own QR code. Visitors can scan it with their phone and read the story behind that day.

Works: 100 palm-sized wall sculptures in Brown Bear clay with underglaze, glaze, and glass reclaimed from bottles collected at Spectrum Center, each fired two or three times at cone 6.
Installation: Each egg hangs on the wall with two screws, 200 screws for the full set. The eggs can be spaced out one by one across a large wall or grouped closely together for a smaller space. Each egg comes with a QR code linking to its story.
Shown: ArtFields 2024, Lake City, SC. NEN Gallery, Charlotte, 2025. South Piedmont Art Gallery, South Piedmont Community College, Monroe, 2026.

Lee Ko placing final pieces on A Blue Way Coming Back, a three-panel porcelain wall sculpture at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center — *A Blue Way Coming Back*, Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center, 2026. Photo by Tracy Watts

Commissions

I also make wall sculptures and installations for hospitals, offices, and private homes. Recent work includes A Blue Way Coming Back at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center, along with pieces for Atrium Health Lake Norman and Haynes and Boone, LLP.

When a client has reclaimed material connected to their space, I'm glad to work it into the piece. It ties the work to the place in a way new materials can't. A Blue Way Coming Back, for example, holds glass from bottles people left behind after shows at Spectrum Center. Those bottles were collected and crushed into recycled glass for building, and from there they found their way into this wall. Resilience, second chances, starting over. That's what the A Way Coming Back series has always been about, and in a hospital or a rehabilitation center, it carries even more weight.

Every commission is priced by its size and materials. After a short conversation about your space, I'll send you an estimate. Installation and shipping depend on the site, so we work those out together too.

How a commission comes together

1Conversation and Design

We start by talking through the space, the light, and the colors you have in mind. From there I draw a proposal to scale, so you can see the piece next to the people who will walk past it.
2Glaze Tests

You share the tones you have in mind, and I build a full palette through glaze tests, staying as close to your vision as I can. Glaze isn't paint, though. Heat, humidity, even the weather, and the way it reacts with the glass and clay in the kiln all change the result. No two firings come out the same, and that's a big part of what gives each piece its life.
3Making

Every piece is shaped by hand. Nothing is cast or pressed from a mold, because no two units should be alike. That's where the movement in the finished wall comes from.
4Installation

I'm on site for every installation. The final pieces go up by my own hand, once I can see the work in its room. Photo by Tracy Watts