Born in 1965 in Hapchen, Korea, Lee Jae Hyo produces immaculately formed, intricate sculptures that reveal his mastery over his materials. In the Gyeonggi Province, where he lives, in the south of Seoul, the forest and the Han River are never far away. The subject of nature is central to the art of Lee Jae Hyo. It is the energy of nature, the uncluttered lines and the simplicity of its elements, which informs his works. It is fundamental to Lee Jae Hyo that the hand follows the essence of the material, working with it with it not against. The material guides the gesture and the texture decides the form. Lee Jae Hyo shares a great respect for raw materials but also a will to dominate what nature has provided. His wood-on-wood combinations read as playful meditations on the multifaceted nature of the material itself. What unites his works is a belief that the beauty of art is a product of the labour from whence it came, whether this be the meticulous carving of larch trunks into the form of a perfect sphere or, equally, the precise bending and sanding of thousands of nails hammered one after another into a hunk of cut lumber. Amongst many other distinctions Jae Hyo was Grand Prize Winner at the Osaka Triennial in 1998 and recipient of the prestigious Irish Sculpture in Woodland commission in 2002. His works are held in public and private collections across Europe, Asia and North America.