Lee Tet Keong, is an artist who is constantly inspired by his surrounding natural and built environments. He enjoys the creative process and uses his art to express his appetite for creating new works.

Lee graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) with Sculpture as his major in 2009. In 2011, he returned to Singapore where he continued his artistic practice in a studio in Midview City. He generated clay works and drawings, experimented with clay found in Singapore, learned glass cutting and fusing of recycled glass during this homecoming.

In 2015, Lee decided to move to Johor Bahru, Malaysia, in search of a permanent studio space. Despite Singapore and Malaysia being neighbours, Lee found that he had to manoeuvre cultural differences when he was there. For example, as the main language spoken across the causeway is Bahasa Melayu, Lee had to pick up rudimentary Malay vocabulary to assimilate into Malaysian society. Once Lee adapted to his new environment, this new and bigger space gave him the capacity to explore and find new inspiration for his creative processes.

From 2016 to 2018, Lee started to investigate the use of glass bottles to further understand ceramic block glazes as a material. However, as he only had access to a ceramics kiln but intended to fire glass, he developed a method to use this kiln to fire glass bottles. Hence, Lee wrapped the bottles up in ceramic fibres to bring the internal temperatures down and used galvanised wire to secure the ceramics fibres to the bottles. The works in this gallery are the results of
this hiring method.

Currently, Lee is working on large-scale sculptural artworks in Johor Bahru and Ipoh, Malaysia. These new works incorporate clay and block glaze into one singular piece that is reserved for an overseas
competition.