Maia Ruth Lee for Nine Orchard

About

Maia Ruth Lee works across sculpture, painting, installation, photography, and video, exploring the narratives of migration and displacement. 

Her 2024 piece, Subliminal Message in Green, created for Nine Orchard’s No Shop and produced by Harlan & Weaver, is a visual lexicon inspired by asemic writing, with a nod to the history of Chinatown's garment industry. 

Lee’s works often feature symbols and runes, reflecting the social and psychological impacts of diasporic, colonized life, as well as the physical markings of lives shaped by movement and transience. Her multidisciplinary, conceptual approach results in dynamic, non-representational expressions of these themes. Born in Busan, South Korea, Lee has lived in Kathmandu, Seoul, New York City, and now resides in Salida, Colorado, where she continues to live and work.

The Work

Inspired by her commissioned work for Nine Orchard in 2021, there is new edition in green. 

With master printers Harlan & Weaver, artist Maia Ruth Lee created a new derivation of the prints that are part of the hotel’s collection on floors 4 and 8, offered exclusively by NO SHOP.

Reflecting on the landmarked building’s history as mostly garment lofts, this composition comprises various clothing parts, separated at the seams, presenting them as a menagerie.

Lee included hand additions to each print, rendering them all unique.

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