Evan Yee is a sculptor, designer and metalworker who co-founded a collaborative studio in Brooklyn, New York. The studio, Liberty Labs Foundation, hosts independent designers, artists, architects and highly skilled artisans. Located in the historic Liberty Warehouse, it was once home to the Statue of Liberty before it was installed in New York Harbor in 1886.
Originally from Oakland, California, Yee began splitting his time between there and Sag Harbor as a teenager. It was then, that a bi-coastal arts practice began to emerge. Yee eventually got his BFA from Pratt Institute with a major in sculpture and an emphasis in metalwork. That skillset set him on a path to pursuing artwork, furniture design and fabrication.
Yee’s sculpture work is often a critique of current trends and objects. His past installation “The App Store” for the 2014 Parrish Road show, set up a fake Apple store with sculpture that questioned the technological optimisms of the time. Later, his work for the “Museum of Capitalism” took objects and cast them in amber or core samples to look at the Anthropocene from a futuristic lens. Yee’s current work focuses on taking familiar things of the everyday and distorting their materiality.
Image courtesy of the artist.