“In a world where we should all be screaming and dismantling the institutions that are actively destroying our planet, Gee’s work is a fleeting oasis in which we can come, shut up, and feel something.” -Formless Review
Stacey Lee Gee was born in New Jersey and currently resides in Chicago. She exhibits both nationally and internationally including at the the Lubeznik Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Ignition Project Space, Ceres Gallery, Terrain Biennial, and Centro d’Art e Cultura. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Iowa and is the current president of the historic feminist gallery ARC in Chicago.
Stacey's work is an extension of the energy that leaks from her fingertips, a reconfiguration of objects past their appropriate era. Her art reorders the past in order to prepare for the future. She believes art is a service meant to perpetuate the healthy psyche of society.
artist statement
Amidst society's ever-shifting power systems and the distortion of truth that comes with it, I find solace in the study and arrangement of worn out things. The objects we interact with in our everyday lives hold a profound power, preserving evidence that cannot be erased. They carry with them the literal smells and markings of a life lived and the weight of cultural references evoked by their specific past. These artifacts are the ideal medium to overcome our tenuous relationship with truth.
The story of culture is always being written, one that pulls in the past to conjure a new narrative. My work is an observation of that ongoing conversation, an exploration of the complexities and contradictions of memory; a rebellion against the notion that the past is fixed and unchanging. I create environments large and small, as installation or sculpture, by arranging objects that are no longer bound by their original function. The presence of familiar smells and recognizable childhood playthings helps to further distort these arrangements until the edges of a new story materialize.