BIOGRAPHY
Mila Lee is a semi-abstract figure artist from United States, born in Seoul, South Korea.
She studied piano performance and worked as a piano teacher and church pianist since 1991. Mila is also an entrepreneur in the beauty and wellness industry since 2009.
Mila Lee experienced a tragic decline in health after being diagnosed with kidney cancer and having a major surgery in 2015, she sorted her business to come visit South Korea where her parents reside. While traveling between the U.S. and Korea her kidney cancer metastasized to her lungs in 2022 and since been receiving chemotherapy for the last two years in South Korea where she currently resides. Thanks to her fiery passion and love for painting, it has healed her in more ways than she could imagine and her health has been a direct reflection of that.
Mila Lee loved drawing since she was a young girl but her mother was opposed to it as her mother had other plans for her like learning how to play the piano.
The process of developing cancer and its metastasis changed her life and values, which led her to begin painting and drawing in 2020 like her heart desired.
Her painting and her art are an expression of her inner reality and emotions.
CV
Exhibition
2024: “Innerside Truth” Gallery Sai Seoul, South Korea
2023: “Passion” GGC Gallery Seoul, South Korea
2022: “Journey” Geumnarae Art Hall Seoul, South Korea
STATEMENT
My work is a mix of “quiet passion” and “cold flame.” The power that allowed me to focus when my soul was shaken by death and cancer was my burning passion for art and painting.
To me, painting is like having faith.
A ray of light shining on me in a dark tunnel, facing a sudden big inflection point in my life…
Does the reason the world makes sense is to remove something in order to gain?
After losing the most valuable thing – health, I was able to bear a valuable fruit I wouldn’t have otherwise.
When my life that have been perfectly orchestrated began to disintegrate before my eyes,
all I could do was accept my fate unconditionally.
My paintings are an expression of my internal being
On canvas, I have tried to transform my desire to be free by disconnecting from my disguised ego of pretending not to be sick.
All represented through each line and every color palette with every cry and pain that was rooted by cancer.
My work, my painting is a self-reflection of my desire to break free.
I hope that through my painting, those with wounded souls and pain in their hearts will feel and receive the powerful energy of recovery that I have experienced in which I share.
