Lee Bethel    Studio 20

​Lee Bethel has been a practising artist for many years.
Born in Sydney she studied at Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University and holds a Master of Fine Art.
Lee has exhibited widely in both solo and group shows nationally and internationally.
She has been a finalist in the Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of NSW and in 2005 was awarded a UNESCO Laureate to work and exhibit in France.
Her solo show ‘Forage’ developing from a residency at Hill End, NSW was shown at the Jean Bellette Gallery,
Hill End, the Bathurst Regional Gallery, Bathurst, The Egg and Dart Gallery Thirroul and the Moran Gallery Sylvania. 
Her work has made the finals of the Hutchins Prize for works on paper, Tasmania, the Hazelhurst Works on Paper, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney,
the North Sydney Art Prize, ‘Books-Beyond Words’, East Gippsland Regional Gallery, The Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Bendigo Gallery,
the Waterhouse Natural history Art Prize, South Australian Museum, ‘Hidden’, Rookwood Sculpture Walk, Sydney and The Gallipoli Art Prize, Sydney.
As well she has been invited to exhibit in group shows at the Wollongong Regional Gallery,
‘Fractured Beauty’ and the Brenda May Gallery ‘Paperworks lll’ show, Waterloo.
Lee has had residencies in Bundanon, NSW, Atelier Fourwinds, Aix en Provence, France and has completed two residencies at Hill End, NSW through Bathurst Regional Gallery and at Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia.
Lee’s arts practise takes a critical view of the relationship between object, place and memory.
Her delicate paper works emanates from the landscape she is in. 
Lee gets to know her landscape by collecting or foraging for seeds and blossoms.
These fragments of nature find their way into work, punctuating her paper cut forms.
The artist’s meditative process of sorting, classifying and ordering seeds is in stark contrast to nature’s random act of scattering the seeds to the wind in order ti fuel successful propagation.
The meticulously cut paper forms reference boundaries and containment, scaffolding and boundaries.
The placement of the seeds within these borders reflects the ‘after nature’ aesthetic common in colonial and post colonial garden practises.
Her work explores light, shadow and colour reflection through intricate cut paper.
Drawing on a love of paper she cuts, weaves and manipulates paper in a unique manner utilizing shadow and reflection
to create complex patterns and peripheral lightscapes.